UC-NRLF 


SB 


DSM 


f.i 


EING/JAPANESE    CURIOS,  W 
SUNDRY    COBWEBS 


CADIO    HEARN 


in  the  Imperial  University 
Tokyo,  Japan 


ILLUSTRATIONS   BT    . 
EN J IRQ    TETO 


'•''•'•i^ 

CM  I LL  AN  ,xg^J^^i| 

&  do;, 


Contents 

OLD  STORIES:  PAGE 

I.    The  Legend  of  Yurei-Daki 3 

II.    In  a  Cup  of  Tea 9 

III.  Common  Sense 19 

IV.  Ikiryo 29 

V.    Shiryo 37 

VI.    The  Story  of  O-Kame 45 

VII.     Story  of  a  Fly 55 

VIII.     Story  of  a  Pheasant 63 

IX.    The  Story  of  Chugoro 71 

x    A  WOMAN'S  DIARY 83 

HEIKE-GANI 129 

;,  FIREFLIES 135 

A  DROP  OF  DEW 171 

179 

A  MATTER  OF  CUSTOM 201 

REVERY 207 

PATHOLOGICAL 217 

IN  THE  DEAD  OF  THE  NIGHT 225 

KUSA-HIBARI 235 

THE  EATER  OF  DREAMS 243 


Yii 


Old  Stories 

The  following  nine  tales  have  been  selected  from  the  "Shin- 
Chomon-Shu^  "  Hyaku  Monogatari?  "  Uji-J&i-Monogatari-Sho? 
and  other  old  Japanese  books,  to  illustrate  some  strange  beliefs. 
They  are  only  Curios. 


The   Legend  of  Yurei-Daki 


The   Legend   of  Yurei-Daki 

NEAR    the    village    of    Kurosaka,    in    the 
province    of   Hoki,    there    is    a   waterfall 
called   Yurei-Daki,    or   The    Cascade  of 
Ghosts.      Why    it   is    so    called    I   do   not    know. 
Near  the  foot  of  the  fall  there   is  a  small  Shinto 
shrine  of  the  god  of  the  locality,  whom  the  people 
name  Taki-Daimyojin ;  and  in  front  of  the  shrine 
is    a    little    wooden    money-box  —  saisen-bako  —  to 
receive  the  offerings  of  believers.     And  there  is  a 
story  about  that  money-box. 

One  icy  winter's  evening,  thirty-five  years  ago, 
the  women  and  girls  employed  at  a  certain  asa- 
toriba,  or  hemp-factory,  in  Kurosaka,  gathered 
around  the  big  brazier  in  the  spinning-room  after 
their  day's  work  had  been  done.  Then  they  amused 
themselves  by  telling  ghost-stories.  By  the  time 
that  a  dozen  stories  had  been  told,  most  of  the  gath 
ering  felt  uncomfortable;  and  a  girl  cried  out,  just  to 

3 


4  THE    LEGEND    OF   YUREI-DAKI 

heighten  the  pleasure  of  fear,  "Only  think  of  going 
this  night,  all  by  one's  self,  to  the  Yurei-Daki !  " 
The  suggestion  provoked  a  general  scream,  fol 
lowed  by  nervous  bursts  of  laughter.  ...  "I'll 
give  all  the  hemp  I  spun  to-day,"  mockingly  said 
one  of  the  party,  "  to  the  person  who  goes ! " 
"So  will  I,"  exclaimed  another.  "And  I,"  said  a 
third.  "  All  of  us,"  affirmed  a  fourth.  .  .  .  Then 
from  among  the  spinners  stood  up  one  Yasumoto 
O-Katsu,  the  wife  of  a  carpenter ;  —  she  had  her 
only  son,  a  boy  of  two  years  old,  snugly  wrapped 
up  and  asleep  upon  her  back.  "  Listen,"  said 
O-Katsu  ;  "  if  you  will  all  really  agree  to  make  over 
to  me  all  the  hemp  spun  to-day,  I  will  go  to  the 
Yurei-Daki."  Her  proposal  was  received  with  cries 
of  astonishment  and  of  defiance.  But  after  having 
been  several  times  repeated,  it  was  seriously  taken. 
Each  of  the  spinners  in  turn  agreed  to  give  up 
her  share  of  the  day's  work  to  O-Katsu,  providing 
that  O-Katsu  should  go  to  the  Yurei-Daki.  "  But 
how  are  we  to  know  if  she  really  goes  there  ? " 
a  sharp  voice  asked.  "Why,  let  her  bring  back 
the  money-box  of  the  god,"  answered  an  old 
woman  whom  the  spinners  called  Obaa-San,  the 
Grandmother ;  "  that  will  be  proof  enough  "  "  I'll 


•        4 

THE   LEGEND    OF   YUREI-DAKI  5 

bring  it,"  cried  O-Katsu.     And  out  she  darted  into 
the  street,  with  her  sleeping  boy  upon  her  back. 

The  night  was  frosty,  but  clear.  Down  the 
empty  street  O-Katsu  hurried ;  and  she  saw  that  all 
the  house  fronts  were  tightly  closed,  because  of  the 
piercing  cold.  Out  of  the  village,  and  along  the 
high  road  she  ran  — picba-picha  —  with  the  great 
silence  of  frozen  rice-fields  on  either  hand,  and  only 
the  stars  to  light  her.  Half  an  hour  she  followed 
the  open  road ;  then  she  turned  down  a  narrower 
way,  winding  under  cliffs.  Darker  and  rougher  the 
path  became  as  she  proceeded ;  but  she  knew  it  well, 
and  she  soon  heard  the  dull  roar  of  the  water. 
A  few  minutes  more,  and  the  way  widened  into  a 
glen,  —  and  the  dull  roar  suddenly  became  a  loud 
clamor,  —  and  before  her  she  saw,  looming  against 
a  mass  of  blackness,  the  long  glimmering  of  the 
fall.  Dimly  she  perceived  the  shrine,  —  the 
money-box.  She  rushed  forward,  —  put  out  her 
hand.  .  .  . 

"O/7  O-Katsu-San!"1  suddenly  called  a  warn 
ing  voice  above  the  crash  of  the  water. 

1  The  exclamation  Oi !  is  used  to  call  the  attention  of  a  person :  it  is  the  Japan 
ese  equivalent  for  such  English  exclamations  as  "  Halloa  !  "  '*  Ho,  there  !  "  etc. 


6  THE   LEGEND   OF   YUREI-DAKI 

O-Katsu  stood  motionless,  —  stupefied  by  terror. 

"  Oi  /  O-Katsu-San  !  "  again  pealed  the  voice, — 
this  time  with  more  of  menace  in  its  tone. 

But  O-Katsu  was  really  a  bold  woman.  At  once 
recovering  from  her  stupefaction,  she  snatched  up 
the  money-box  and  ran.  She  neither  heard  nor  saw 
anything  more  to  alarm  her  until  she  reached  the 
highroad,  where  she  stopped  a  moment  to  take 
breath.  Then  she  ran  on^steadily, — picha-picha, — 
till  she  got  to  Kurosaka,  and  thumped  at  the  door 
of  the  asa-toriba. 

How  the  women  and  the  girls  cried  out  as  she 
entered,  panting,  with  the  money-box  of  the  god 
in  her  hand !  Breathlessly  they  heard  her  story ; 
sympathetically  they  screeched  when  she  told  them 
of  the  Voice  that  had  called  her  name,  twice,  out  of 
the  haunted  water.  .  .  .  What  a  woman !  Brave 
O-Katsu!  —  well  had  she  earned  the  hemp!  .  .  . 
"  But  your  boy  must  be  cold,  O-Katsu  !  "  cried 
the  Obaa-San,  "let  us  have  him  here  by  the 
fire !  " 

"He  ought  to  be  hungry,"  exclaimed  the 
mother ;  "  I  must  give  him  his  milk  presently." 
..."  Poor  O-Katsu  !  "  said  the  Obaa-San,  help- 


THE   LEGEND    OF   YUREI-DAKI 


ing  to  remove  the  wraps  in  which  the  boy  had 
been  carried,  —  "why,  you  are  all  wet  behind!'3 
Then,  with  a  husky  scream,  the  helper  vocifer 
ated,  "Aral  it  is  blood!" 

And  out  of  the  wrappings  unfastened  there  fell 
to  the  floor  a  blood-soaked  bundle  of  baby  clothes 


that  left 
very  small 
and  two  very 
hands  —  no- 
The  child's 
been  torn 


exposed  two 
brown  feet, 
small  brown 
thing  more, 
head  had 
off!  . 


In   a   Cup   of  Tea 


In  a  Cup  of  Tea 

HAVE  you  ever  attempted  to  mount  some 
old  tower  stairway,  spiring  up  through 
darkness,  and  in  the  heart  of  that  darkness 
found  yourself  at  the  cobwebbed  edge  of  nothing  ? 
Or  have  you  followed  some  coast  path,  cut  along 
the  face  of  a  cliff,  only  to  discover  yourself,  at  a 
turn,  on  the  jagged  verge  of  a  break  ?  The  emo 
tional  worth  of  such  experience  —  from  a  literary 
point  of  view  —  is  proved  by  the  force  of  the  sen 
sations  aroused,  and  by  the  vividness  with  which 
they  are  remembered. 

Now  there  have  been  curiously  preserved,  in  old 
Japanese  story-books,  certain  fragments  of  fiction 
that  produce  an  almost  similar  emotional  experience. 
.  .  .  Perhaps  the  writer  was  lazy ;  perhaps  he 
had  a  quarrel  with  the  publisher ;  perhaps  he  was 
suddenly  called  away  from  his  little  table,  and 
never  came  back ;  perhaps  death  stopped  the 
writing-brush  in  the  very  middle  of  a  sentence. 

ii 


12  IN   A   CUP    OF   TEA 

But  no  mortal  man  can  ever  tell  us  exactly  why 
these  things  were  left  unfinished.  ...  I  select 
a  typical  example. 


•six 


On  the  fourth  day  of  the  first  month  of  the  third 
Tenwa,  —  that  is  to  say,  about  two  hundred  and 
twenty  years  ago,  —  the  lord  Nakagawa  Sado,  while 
on  his  way  to  make  a  New  Year's  visit,  halted  with 
his  train  at  a  tea-house  in  Hakusan,  in  the  Hongo 
district  of  Yedo.  While  the  party  were  resting 
there,  one  of  the  lord's  attendants,  —  a  wakato l 
named  Sekinai,  —  feeling  very  thirsty,  filled  for 
himself  a  large  water-cup  with  tea.  He  was  rais 
ing  the  cup  to  his  lips  when  he  suddenly  perceived, 
in  the  transparent  yellow  infusion,  the  image  or 
reflection  of  a  face  that  was  not  his  own.  Startled, 
he  looked  around,  but  could  see  no  one  near  him. 
The  face  in  the  tea  appeared,  from  the  coiffure,  to 
be  the  face  of  a  young  samurai :  it  was  strangely 

1  The  armed  attendant  of  a  samurai  was  thus  called.     The  relation  of  the  ivakatd 
tp  the  sartfurai  was  that  of  scjuire  to  knight. 


IN   A    CUP    OF   TEA  13 

distinct,  and  very  handsome,  —  delicate  as  the  face 
of  a  girl.  And  it  seemed  the  reflection  of  a  living 
face ;  for  the  eyes  and  the  lips  were  moving. 
Bewildered  by  this  mysterious  apparition,  Sekinai 
threw  away  the  tea,  and  carefully  examined  the 
cup.  It  proved  to  be  a  very  cheap  water-cup,  with 
no  artistic  devices  of  any  sort.  He  found  and 
rilled  another  cup ;  and  again  the  face  appeared  in 
the  tea.  He  then  ordered  fresh  tea,  and  refilled 
the  cup ;  and  once  more  the  strange  face  appeared, 
—  this  time  with  a  mocking  smile.  But  Sekinai 
did  not  allow  himself  to  be  frightened.  "  Whoever 
you  are,"  he  muttered,  "  you  shall  delude  me  no 
further  !  "  —  then  he  swallowed  the  tea,  face  and  all, 
and  went  his  way,  wondering  whether  he  had 
swallowed  a  ghost. 

Late  in  the  evening  of  the  same  day,  while  on 
watch  in  the  palace  of  the  lord  Nakagawa,  Sekinai 
was  surprised  by  the  soundless  coming  of  a 
stranger  into  the  apartment.  This  stranger,  a 
richly  dressed  young  samurai,  seated  himself 
directly  in  front  of  Sekinai,  and,  saluting  the  wakato 
with  a  slight  bow,  observed :  — 

"  I    am    Shikibu    Heinai  —  met  you   to-day   for 


H  IN   A   CUP   OF   TEA 

the  first  time.  .  .  .  You  do  not  seem  to  recognize 
me." 

He  spoke  in  a  very  low,  but  penetrating  voice. 
And  Sekinai  was  astonished  to  find  before  him  the 
same  sinister,  handsome  face  of  which  he  had  seen, 
and  swallowed,  the  apparition  in  a  cup  of  tea. 
It  was  smiling  now,  as  the  phantom  had  smiled ; 
but  the  steady  gaze  of  the  eyes,  above  the  smiling 
lips,  was  at  once  a  challenge  and  an  insult. 

"  No,  I  do  not  recognize  you,"  returned  Sekinai, 
angry  but  cool ;  — "  and  perhaps  you  will  now  be 
good  enough  to  inform  me  how  you  obtained 
admission  to  this  house  ?  " 

[In  feudal  times  the  residence  of  a  lord  was 
strictly  guarded  at  all  hours  ;  and  no  one  could  enter 
unannounced,  except  through  some  unpardonable 
negligence  on  the  part  of  the  armed  watch.] 

"  Ah,  you  do  not  recognize  me  !  "  exclaimed  the 
visitor,  in  a  tone  of  irony,  drawing  a  little  nearer 
as  he  spoke.  "  No,  you  do  not  recognize  me ! 
Yet  you  took  upon  yourself  this  morning  to  do  me 
a  deadly  injury !  .  .  ." 

Sekinai  instantly  seized  the  tanfo1  at  his  girdle, 

1  The  shorter  of  the  two  swords  carried  by  samurai.     The  longer  sword  was 

called  katana. 


IN   A    CUP    OF   TEA  15 

and  made  a  fierce  thrust  at  the  throat  of  the  man. 
But  the  blade  seemed  to  touch  no  substance. 
Simultaneously  and  soundlessly  the  intruder  leaped 
sideward  to  the  chamber-wall,  and  through  it  /  .  .  . 
The  wall  showed  no  trace  of  his  exit.  He  had 
traversed  it  only  as  the  light  of  a  candle  passes 
through  lantern-paper. 

When  Sekinai  made  report  of  the  incident,  his 
recital  astonished  and  puzzled  the  retainers.  No 
stranger  had  been  seen  either  to  enter  or  to  leave 
the  palace  at  the  hour  of  the  occurrence  ;  and  no  one 
in  the  service  of  the  lord  Nakagawa  had  ever  heard 
of  the  name  "  Shikibu  Heinai." 


On  the  following  night  Sekinai  was  off  duty,  and 
remained  at  home  with  his  parents.  At  a  rather 
late  hour  he  was  informed  that  some  strangers  had 
called  at  the  house,  and  desired  to  speak  with  him 
for  a  moment.  Taking  his  sword,  he  went  to  the 
entrance,  and  there  found  three  armed  men, — 
apparently  retainers,  —  waiting  in  front  of  the  door 
step.  The  three  bowed  respectfully  to  Sekinai ; 
and  one  of  them  said :  — 


i6 


IN   A   CUP   OF   TEA 


"  Our  names  are  Matsuoka  Bungo,  Tsuchibashi 
Bungo,  and  Okamura  Heiroku.     We  are  retainers 
of  the    noble  Shikibu  Heinai.     When  our  master 
last   night  deigned  to  pay  you  a  visit,  you  struck 
him    with     a   .... ....... —  sword.        He 

hurt,  and  has 
to  go   to   the 
where       his 
being  treated, 
sixteenth  day 
month  he  will 
he    will    then 
you    for    the 
him.  .  .  ." 

waiting      to 
Sekinai  leaped 


was  much 
been  obliged 
hot  springs, 
wound  is  now 
But  on  the 
of  the  coming 
return  ;  and 
fitly  repay 
injury  done 
Without 
hear  more, 
out,  sword  in  hand,  and  slashed  right  and  left,  at 
the  strangers.  But  the  three  men  sprang  to  the 
wall  of  the  adjoining  building,  and  flitted  up  the 
wall  like  shadows,  and  .  .  . 


IN   A    CUP   OF   TEA  17 

Here  the  old  narrative  breaks  off;  the  rest  of 
the  story  existed  only  in  some  brain  that  has  been 
dust  for  a  century. 

I  am  able  to  imagine  several  possible  endings  ; 
but  none  of  them  would  satisfy  an  Occidental 
imagination.  I  prefer  to  let  the  reader  attempt  to 
decide  for  himself  the  probable  consequence  of 
swallowing  a  Soul. 


Common    Sense 


^^^m^^-^?m 


Common   Sense 


ONCE  there  lived  upon  the  mountain  called 
Atagoyama,  near  Kyoto,  a  certain  learned 
priest  who  devoted  all  his  time  to  medi 
tation  and  the  study  of  the  sacred  books.  The 
little  temple  in  which  he  dwelt  was  far  from  any 
village ;  and  he  could  not,  in  such  a  solitude,  have 
obtained  without  help  the  common  necessaries  of 
life.  But  several  devout  country  people  regularly 
contributed  to  his  maintenance,  bringing  him  each 
month  supplies  of  vegetables  and  of  rice. 

Among  these  good  folk  there  was  a  certain 
hunter,  who  sometimes  visited  the  mountain  in 
search  of  game.  One  day,  when  this  hunter  had 
brought  a  bag  of  rice  to  the  temple,  the  priest  said 
to  him :  — 

"  Friend,  I  must  tell  "you  that  wonderful  things 
have  happened  here  since  the  last  time  I  saw  you. 
I  do  not  certainly  know  why  such  things  should 
have  happened  in  my  unworthy  presence.  But  you 


21 


22  COMMON   SENSE 

are  aware  that  I  have  been  meditating,  and  reciting 
the  sutras  daily,  for  many  years ;  and  it  is  possible 
that  what  has  been  vouchsafed  me  is  due  to  the 
merit  obtained  through  these  religious  exercises. 
I  am  not  sure  of  this.  But  I  am  sure  that  Fugen 
Bosatsu  1  comes  nightly  to  this  temple,  riding  upon 
his  elephant.  .  .  .  Stay  here  with  me  this  night, 
friend ;  then  you  will  be  able  to  see  and  to  worship 
the  Buddha." 

"  To  witness  so  holy  a  vision,"  the  hunter 
replied,  *'  were  a  privilege  indeed !  Most  gladly 
I  shall  stay,  and  worship  with  you." 

So  the  hunter  remained  at  the  temple.  But 
while  the  priest  was  engaged  in  his  religious  exer 
cises,  the  hunter  began  to  think  about  the  prom 
ised  miracle,  and  to  doubt  whether  such  a  thing 
could  be.  And  the  more  he  thought,  the  more  he 
doubted.  There  was  a  little  boy  in  the  temple, — 
an  acolyte,  —  and  the  hunter  found  an  opportunity 
to  question  the  boy. 

"The  priest  told  me,"  said  the  hunter,  "that 
Fugen  Bosatsu  comes  to  this  temple  every  night. 
Have  you  also  seen  Fugen  Bosatsu  ? " 

1  Samantabhadra  Bodhisattva. 


COMMON    SENSE  23 

"  Six  times,  already,"  the  acolyte  replied,  "  I  have 
seen  and  reverently  worshipped  Fugen  Bosatsu." 

This  declaration  only  served  to  increase  the 
hunter's  suspicions,  though  he  did  not  in  the 
least  doubt  the  truthfulness  of  the  boy.  He 
reflected,  however,  that  he  would  probably  be  able 
to  see  whatever  the  boy  had  seen ;  and  he  waited 
with  eagerness  for  the  hour  of  the  promised 
vision. 

Shortly  before  midnight  the  priest  announced 
that  it  was  time  to  prepare  for  the  coming  of  Fugen 
Bosatsu.  The  doors  of  the  little  temple  were 
thrown  open ;  and  the  priest  knelt  down  at  the 
threshold,  with  his  face  to  the  east.  The  acolyte 
knelt  at  his  left  hand,  and  the  hunter  respectfully 
placed  himself  behind  the  priest. 

It  was  the  night  of  the  twentieth  of  the  ninth 
month,  —  a  dreary,  dark,  and  very  windy  night ; 
and  the  three  waited  a  long  time  for  the  coming  of 
Fugen  Bosatsu.  But  at  last  a  point  of  white  light 
appeared,  like  a  star,  in  the  direction  of  the  east ; 
and  this  light  approached  quickly,  —  growing  larger 
and  larger  as  it  came,  and  illuminating  all  the  slope 
of  the  mountain.  Presently  the  light  took  shape 


24  COMMON   SENSE 

—  the  shape  of  a  being  divine,  riding  upon  a 
snow-white  elephant  with  six  tusks.  And,  in 
another  moment,  the  elephant  with  its  shining  rider 
arrived  before  the  temple,  and  there  stood  towering, 
like  a  mountain  of  moonlight,  —  wonderful  and 
weird. 

Then  the  priest  and  the  boy,  prostrating  them 
selves,  began  with  exceeding  fervour  to  repeat  the 
holy  invocation  to  Fugen  Bosatsu.  But  suddenly 
the  hunter  rose  up  behind  them,  bow  in  hand ; 
and,  bending  his  bow  to  the  full,  he  sent  a  long 
arrow  whizzing  straight  at  the  luminous  Buddha, 
into  whose  breast  it  sank  up  to  the  very  feathers. 

Immediately,  with  a  sound  like  a  thunder-clap, 
the  white  light  vanished,  and  the  vision  disap 
peared.  Before  the  temple  there  was  nothing  but 
windy  darkness. 

"  O  miserable  man  ! "  cried  out  the  priest,  with 
tears  of  shame  and  despair,  "  O  most  wretched 
and  wicked  man  !  what  have  you  done  ?  —  what 
have  you  done  ?  " 

But  the  hunter  received  the  reproaches  of  the 
priest  without  any  sign  of  compunction  or  of 
anger.  Then  he  said,  very  gently :  — 

"  Reverend  sir,  please  try  to  calm  yourself,  and 


COMMON   SENSE  25 

listen  to  me.  You  thought  that  you  were  able 
to  see  Fugen  Bosatsu  because  of  some  merit  ob 
tained  through  your  constant  meditations  and 
your  recitation  of  the  sutras.  But  if  that  had 
been  the  case,  the  Buddha  would  have  appeared 
to  you  only  —  not  to  me,  nor  even  to  the  boy. 
I  am  an  ignorant  hunter,  and  my  occupation  is 
to  kill ;  —  and  the  taking  of  life  is  hateful  to  the 
Buddhas.  How  then  should  I  be  able  to  see 
Fugen  Bosatsu  ?  I  have  been  taught  that  the 
Buddhas  are  everywhere  about  us,  and  that  we 
remain  unable  to  see  them  because  of  our  igno 
rance  and  our  imperfections.  You  —  being  a 
learned  priest  of  pure  life  —  might  indeed  acquire 
such  enlightenment  as  would  enable  you  to  see 
the  Buddhas ;  but  how  should  a  man  who  kills 
animals  for  his  livelihood  find  the  power  to  see 
the  divine  ?  Both  I  and  this  little  boy  could  see 
all  that  you  saw.  And  let  me  now  assure  you, 
reverend  sir,  that  what  you  saw  was  not  Fugen 
Bosatsu,  but  a  goblinry  intended  to  deceive  you 
—  perhaps  even  to  destroy  you.  I  beg  that  you 
will  try  to  control  your  feelings  until  daybreak. 
Then  I  will  prove  to  you  the  truth  of  what  I 
have  said." 


26 


COMMON   SENSE 


At  sunrise  the  hunter  and  the  priest  examined 
the  spot  where  the  vision  had  been  standing,  and 
they  discovered  a  thin  trail  of  blood.  And  after 
having  followed  this  trail  to  a  hollow  some  hun 
dred  paces  away,  they  came  upon  the  body  of  a 
great  badger,  transfixed  by  the  hunter's  arrow. 

The  priest,  although  a  learned  and  pious  per 
son,  had  easily  been  deceived  by  a  badger.  But 


the  hunter, 
and  irrelig- 
gifted  with 
mon  sense ; 
er-wit  alone 
at  once  to 
destroy  a 
lusion. 


an  ignorant 
iousman,was 
strong  com- 
and  by  moth- 
he  was  able 
detect  and  to 
dangerous  il- 


Ikiryo 


1 


IkiryS 

FORMERLY,  in  the  quarter  of  Reiganjima, 
in  Yedo,  there  was  a  great  porcelain  shop 
called  the  Setomonodana,  kept  by  a  rich 
man  named  Kihei.  Kihei  had  in  his  employ,  for 
many  years,  a  head  clerk  named  Rokubei.  Under 
Rokubei's  care  the  business  prospered;  —  and  at 
last  it  grew  so  large  that  Rokubei  found  himself 
unable  to  manage  it  without  help.  He  therefore 
asked  and  obtained  permission  to  hire  an  experi 
enced  assistant;  and  he  then  engaged  one  of  his 
own  nephews,  —  a  young  man  about  twenty-two 
years  old,  who  had  learned  the  porcelain  trade  in 
Osaka. 

The    nephew    proved    a    very    capable    assistant, 

shrewder     in     business     than     his     experienced 

uncle.     His  enterprise    extended    the  trade  of  the 

1  Literally,  "living  spirit,"  —that  is  to  say,  the  ghost  of  a  person  still  alive. 
An  ikiryo  may  detach  itself  from  the  body  under  the  influence  of  anger,  and  proceed 
to  haunt  and  torment  the  individual  by  whom  the  anger  was  caused. 

20 


30  IKIRYO 

house,  and  Kihei  was  greatly  pleased.  But  about 
seven  months  after  his  engagement,  the  young 
man  became  very  ill,  and  seemed  likely  to  die. 
The  best  physicians  in  Yedo  were  summoned  to 
attend  him ;  but  none  of  them  could  understand 
the  nature  of  his  sickness.  They  prescribed  no 
medicine,  and  expressed  the  opinion  that  such  a 
sickness  could  only  have  been  caused  by  some 
secret  grief. 

Rokubei  imagined  that  it  might  be  a  case  of 
lovesickness.  He  therefore  said  to  his  nephew:  — 

"  I  have  been  thinking  that,  as  you  are  still  very 
young,  you  might  have  formed  some  secret  attach 
ment  which  is  making  you  unhappy,  —  perhaps 
even  making  you  ill.  If  this  be  the  truth,  you 
certainly  ought  to  tell  me  all  about  your  troubles. 
Here  I  stand  to  you  in  the  place  of  a  father, 
as  you  are  far  away  from  your  parents  ;  and  if 
you  have  any  anxiety  or  sorrow,  I  am  ready  to 
do  for  you  whatever  a  father  should  do.  If 
money  can  help  you,  do  not  be  ashamed  to  tell 
me,  even  though  the  amount  be  large.  I 
think  that  I  could  assist  you ;  and  I  am  sure 
that  Kihei  would  be  glad  to  do  anything  to  make 
you  happy  and  well." 


IKIRYO  31 

The  sick  youth  appeared  to  be  embarrassed  by 
these  kindly  assurances ;  and  for  some  little  time 
he  remained  silent.  At  last  he  answered  :  — 

"  Never  in  this  world  can  I  forget  those  gener 
ous  words.  But  I  have  no  secret  attachment  — 
no  longing  for  any  woman.  This  sickness  of 
mine  is  not  a  sickness  that  doctors  can  cure  ;  and 
money  could  not  help  me  in  the  least.  The 
truth  is,  that  I  have  been  so  persecuted  in  this 
house  that  I  scarcely  care  to  live.  Everywhere 
—  by  day  and  by  night,  whether  in  the  shop  or 
in  my  room,  whether  alone  or  in  company  —  I 
have  been  unceasingly  followed  and  tormented  by 
the  Shadow  of  a  woman.  And  it  is  long,  long 
since  I  have  been  able  to  get  even  one  night's  rest. 
For  so  soon  as  I  close  my  eyes,  the  Shadow  of 
the  woman  takes  me  by  the  throat  and  strives  to 
strangle  me.  So  I  cannot  sleep.  .  .  ." 

"And  why  did  you  not  tell  me  this  before?'3 
asked  Rokubei. 

"Because  I  thought,"  the  nephew  answered, 
"  that  it  would  be  of  no  use  to  tell  you.  The 
Shadow  is  not  the  ghost  of  a  dead  person.  It 
is  made  by  the  hatred  of  a  living  person  —  a  per 
son  whom  you  very  well  know." 


32  IKIRYO 

"  What  person  ? "  questioned  Rokubei,  in  great 
astonishment.1 

"  The  mistress  of  this  house,"  whispered  the 
youth,  — "  the  wife  of  Kihei  Sama.  .  .  .  She 
wishes  to  kill  me." 

Rokubei  was  bewildered  by  this  confession. 
He  doubted  nothing  of  what  his  nephew  had 
said ;  but  he  could  not  imagine  a  reason  for  the 
haunting.  An  ikiryo  might  be  caused  by  disap 
pointed  love,  or  by  violent  hate,  —  without  the 
knowledge  of  the  person  from  whom  it  had  ema 
nated.  To  suppose  any  love  in  this  case  was 
impossible ;  —  the  wife  of  Kihei  was  considerably 
more  than  fifty  years  of  age.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  what  could  the  young  clerk  have  done  to 
provoke  hatred,  —  a  hatred  capable  of  producing 
an  ikiryo  ?  He  had  been  irreproachably  well  con 
ducted,  unfailingly  courteous,  and  earnestly  devoted 
to  his  duties.  The  mystery  troubled  Rokubei ;  but, 
after  careful  reflection,  he  decided  to  tell  everything 
to  Kihei,  and  to  request  an  investigation. 

1  An  ikiryo  is  seen  only  by  the  person  haunted.  —  For  another  illustration  of 
this  curious  belief,  see  the  paper  entitled  "  The  Stone  Buddha"  in  my  Out  of  the 
East,  p.  171, 


IKIRYO  33 

Kihei  was  astounded ;  but  in  the  time  of  forty 
years  he  had  never  had  the  least  reason  to  doubt 
the  word  of  Rokubei.  He  therefore  summoned 
his  wife  at  once,  and  carefully  questioned  her, 
telling  her,  at  the  same  time,  what  the  sick  clerk 
had  said.  At  first  she  turned  pale,  and  wept ;  but, 
after  some  hesitation,  she  answered  frankly :  — 

"  I  suppose  that  what  the  new  clerk  has  said 
about  the  ikiryo  is  true,  —  though  I  really  tried 
never  to  betray,  by  word  or  look,  the  dislike 
which  I  could  not  help  feeling  for  him.  You 
know  that  he  is  very  skilful  in  commerce,  —  very 
shrewd  in  everything  that  he  does.  And  you 
have  given  him  much  authority  in  this  house  — 
power  over  the  apprentices  and  the  servants. 
But  our  only  son,  who  should  inherit  this  busi 
ness,  is  very  simple-hearted  and  easily  deceived ; 
and  I  have  long  been  thinking  that  your  clever 
new  clerk  might  so  delude  our  boy  as  to  get 
possession  of  all  this  property.  Indeed,  I  am 
certain  that  your  clerk  could  at  any  time,  without 
the  least  difficulty,  and  without  the  least  risk  to 
himself,  ruin  our  business  and  ruin  our  son. 
And  with  this  certainty  in  my  mind,  I  cannot 
help  fearing  and  hating  the  man.  I  have  often 


34  IKIRYO 

and  often  wished  that  he  were  dead ;  I  have  even 
wished  that  it  were  in  my  own  power  to  kill  him. 
.  .  .  Yes,  I  know  that  it  is  wrong  to  hate  any 
one  in  such  a  way ;  but  I  could  not  check  the 
feeling.  Night  and  day  I  have  been  wishing  evil 
to  that  clerk.  So  I  cannot  doubt  that  he  has  really 
seen  the  thing  of  which  he  spoke  to  Rokubei." 

"  How  absurd  of  you,"  exclaimed  Kihei,  "  to 
torment  yourself  thus !  Up  to  the  present  time 
that  clerk  has  done  no  single  thing  for  which  he 
could  be  blamed;  and  you  have  caused  him  to 
suffer  cruelly.  .  .  .  Now  if  I  should  send  him 
away,  with  his  uncle,  to  another  town,  to  establish 
a  branch  business,  could  you  not  endeavour  to 
think  more  kindly  of  him  ? " 

"  If  I  do  not  see  his  face  or  hear  his  voice," 
the  wife  answered,  — £C  if  you  will  only  send  him 
away  from  this  house,  —  then  I  think  that  I  shall 
be  able  to  conquer  my  hatred  of  him." 

"  Try  to  do  so,"  said  Kihei ;  —  "  for,  if  you  con 
tinue  to  hate  him  as  you  have  been  hating  him, 
he  will  certainly  die,  and  you  will  then  be  guilty 
of  having  caused  the  death  of  a  man  who  has 
done  us  nothing  but  good.  He  has  been,  in 
every  way,  a  most  excellent  servant." 


IKIRYO 


35 


Then  Kihei  quickly  made  arrangements  for 
the  establishment  of  a  branch  house  in  another 
city ;  and  he  sent  Rokubei  there  with  the  clerk, 
to  take  charge.  And  thereafter  the  ikiryo  ceased 
to  torment  the  young  man,  who  soon  recovered 
his  health. 


Shiryo 


Shiryo  l 

ON  the  death  of  Nomoto  Yajiyemon,  a 
daikwan 2  in  the  province  of  Echizen, 
his  clerks  entered  into  a  conspiracy  to 
defraud  the  family  of  their  late  master.  Under 
pretext  of  paying  some  of  the  daikwan's  debts, 
they  took  possession  of  all  the  money,  valuables, 
and  furniture  in  his  house ;  and  they  furthermore 
prepared  a  false  report  to  make  it  appear  that  he 
had  unlawfully  contracted  obligations  exceeding 
the  worth  of  his  estate.  This  false  report  they 
sent  to  the  Saisho,8  and  the  Saisho  thereupon 
issued  a  decree  banishing  the  widow  and  the 
children  of  Nomoto  from  the  province  of  Echi 
zen.  For  in  those  times  the  family  of  a  daikwan 

1  The  term  shiryo,  "  dead  ghost,"  — that  is  to  say,  the  ghost  of  a  dead  person, 
—  is  used  in  contradistinction  to  the  term  ikiryo,  signifying  the  apparition  of  a  living 
person.       Yurei  is  a  more  generic  name  for  ghosts  of  any  sort. 

2  A  daikiuan  was  a  district  governor  under  the  direct  control  of  the  Sh5gunate. 
His  functions  were  both  civil  and  judicial. 

8  The  Saisbo  was  a  high  official  of  the  Shogunate,  with  duties  corresponding  to 
those  of  a  prime  minister. 

39 


40  SHIRYO 

were  held  in  part  responsible,  even  after  his  death, 
for  any  malfeasance  proved  against  him. 

But  at  the  moment  when  the  order  of  banish 
ment  was  officially  announced  to  the  widow  of 
Nomoto,  a  strange  thing  happened  to  a  maid 
servant  in  the  house.  She  was  seized  with  con 
vulsions  and  shudderings,  like  a  person  possessed ; 
and  when  the  convulsions  passed,  she  rose  up, 
and  cried  out  to  the  officers  of  the  Saisho,  and 
to  the  clerks  of  her  late  master  :  — 

"  Now  listen  to  me !  It  is  not  a  girl  who  is 
speaking  to  you;  it  is  I,  —  Yajiyemon,  Nomoto 
Yajiyemon,  —  returned  to  you  from  the  dead. 
In  grief  and  great  anger  do  I  return  —  grief  and 
anger  caused  me  by  those  in  whom  I  vainly  put 
my  trust !  .  .  .  O  you  infamous  and  ungrateful 
clerks  !  how  could  you  so  forget  the  favours  be 
stowed  upon  you,  as  thus  to  ruin  my  property, 
and  to  disgrace  my  name  ?  .  .  .  Here,  now,  in 
my  presence,  let  the  accounts  of  my  office  and 
of  my  house  be  made ;  and  let  a  servant  be  sent 
for  the  books  of  the  Metsuke,1  so  that  the  esti 
mates  may  be  compared  !  " 

1  The  Metsuke  was  a  government  official,  charged  with  the  duty  of  keeping 
watch  over  the  conduct  of  local  governors  or  district  judges,  and  of  inspecting  their 
accounts. 


SHIRYO  41 

As  the  maid  uttered  these  words,  all  present 
were  filled  with  astonishment ;  for  her  voice  and  her 
manner  were  the  voice  and  the  manner  of  Nomoto 
Yajiyemon.  The  guilty  clerks  turned  pale.  But 
the  representatives  of  the  Saisho  at  once  com 
manded  that  the  desire  expressed  by  the  girl 
should  be  fully  granted.  All  the  account-books 
of  the  office  were  promptly  placed  before  her, — 
and  the  books  of  the  Metsuke  were  brought  in ; 
and  she  began  the  reckoning.  Without  making 
a  single  error,  she  went  through  all  the  ac 
counts,  writing  down  the  totals  and  correcting  every 
false  entry.  And  her  writing,  as  she  wrote,  was 
seen  to  be  the  very  writing  of  Nomoto  Yajiye 
mon. 

Now  this  reexamination  of  the  accounts  not 
only  proved  that  there  had  been  no  indebtedness, 
but  also  showed  that  there  had  been  a  surplus  in 
the  office  treasury  at  the  time  of  the  daikwan's 
death.  Thus  the  villany  of  the  clerks  became 
manifest. 

And  when  all  the  accounts  had  been  made  up, 
the  girl  said,  speaking  in  the  very  voice  of  Nomoto 
Yajiyemon  :  — 

"  Now    everything    is    finished ;     and    I    can    do 


SHIRYO 


nothing    further    in    the    matter.      So    I    shall    go 
back  to  the  place  from  which  I   came." 

Then  she  lay  down,  and  instantly  fell  asleep; 
and  she  slept  like  a  dead  person  during  two 
days  and  two  nights.  [For  great  weariness 
and  deep  sleep  fall  upon  the  possessed,  when  the 


possessing 
from  them.] 
again  awoke, 
her  manner 
and  the  man- 
young  girl ; 
that  time,  nor 
after,  could 
her  what  had 
while  she  was 
the  ghost  of 
jiyemon. 


spirit  passes 
When  she 
her  voice  and 
were  the  voice 
ner  of  a 
and  neither  at 
at  any  time 
she  remem- 
happened 
possessed  by 
Nomoto  Ya- 


A  report  of  this  event  was  promptly  sent  to 
the  Saisho;  and  the  Saisho,  in  consequence,  not 
only  revoked  the  order  of  banishment,  but  made 
large  gifts  to  the  family  of  the  daikwan.  Later 
on,  various  posthumous  honours  were  conferred 
upon  Nomoto  Yajiyemon ;  and  for  many  subse- 


SHIRYO  43 

quent  years  his  house  was  favoured  by  the  Gov 
ernment,  so  that  it  prospered  greatly.  But  the 
clerks  received  the  punishment  which  they  de 
served. 


The   Story   of  O-Kame 


The   Story  of  O-Kame 

O-KAME,  daughter  of  the  rich  Gonyemon 
of    Nagoshi,    in    the    province    of    Tosa, 
was  very  fond  of  her  husband,  Hachiye- 
mon.       She    was    twenty-two,    and     Hachiyemon 
twenty-five.     She  was  so  fond  of  him  that  people 
imagined  her  to  be  jealous.      But    he    never    gave 
her  the  least  cause  for  jealousy ;    and  it  is  certain 
that    no    single    unkind    word    was     ever    spoken 
between  them. 

Unfortunately  the  health  of  O-Kame  was  feeble. 
Within  less  than  two  years  after  her  marriage 
she  was  attacked  by  a  disease,  then  prevalent  in 
Tosa,  and  the  best  doctors  were  not  able  to  cure 
her.  Persons  seized  by  this  malady  could  not 
eat  or  drink ;  they  remained  constantly  drowsy 
and  languid,  and  troubled  by  strange  fancies. 
And,  in  spite  of  constant  care,  O-Kame  grew 
weaker  and  weaker,  day  by  day,  until  it  became 
evident,  even  to  herself,  that  she  was  going  to  die. 

47 


48  THE   STORY    OF    O-KAM£ 

Then  she  called  her  husband,  and  said  to 
him :  — 

"  I  cannot  tell  you  how  good  you  have  been 
to  me  during  this  miserable  sickness  of  mine. 
Surely  no  one  could  have  been  more  kind.  But 
that  only  makes  it  all  the  harder  for  me  to  leave 
you  now.  .  .  .  Think !  I  am  not  yet  even 
twenty-five,  —  and  I  have  the  best  husband  in  all 
this  world,  —  and  yet  I  must  die !  .  .  .  Oh,  no, 
no !  it  is  useless  to  talk  to  me  about  hope  ;  the 
best  Chinese  doctors  could  do  nothing  for  me.  I 
did  think  to  live  a  few  months  longer;  but  when 
I  saw  my  face  this  morning  in  the  mirror,  I  knew 
that  I  must  die  to-day,  —  yes,  this  *  very  day. 
And  there  is  something  that  I  want  to  beg  you 
to  do  for  me  —  if  you  wish  me  to  die  quite 
happy." 

"  Only  tell  me  what  it  is/'  Hachiyemon  an 
swered  ;  "  and  if  it  be  in  my  power  to  do,  I  shall 
be  more  than  glad  to  do  it." 

"  No,  no  —  you  will  not  be  glad  to  do  it,"  she 
returned :  "  you  are  still  so  young !  It  is  diffi 
cult  —  very,  very  difficult  —  even  to  ask  you  to 
do  such  a  thing ;  yet  the  wish  for  it  is  like  a  fire 
burning  in  my  breast.  I  must  speak  it  before 


THE   STORY   OF    O-KAME  49 

I  die.  .  .  .  My  dear,  you  know  that  sooner 
or  later,  after  I  am  dead,  they  will  want  you  to 
take  another  wife.  Will  you  promise  me  —  can 
you  promise  me  —  not  to  marry  again  ?  .  .  ." 

"  Only  that !  "  Hachiyemon  exclaimed.  "  Why, 
if  that  be  all  that  you  wanted  to  ask  for,  your 
wish  is  very  easily  granted.  With  all  my  heart 
I  promise  you  that  no  one  shall  ever  take  your 
place." 

"  A  a  I  uresbiya  !  "  cried  O-Kame,  half-rising 
from  her  couch ;  —  "  oh,  how  happy  you  have  made 
me!" 

And  she  fell  back  dead. 

Now  the  health  of  Hachiyemon  appeared  to 
fail  after  the  death  of  O-Kame.  At  first  the 
change  in  his  aspect  was  attributed  to  natural 
grief,  and  the  villagers  only  said,  "  How  fond  of 
her  he  must  have  been ! "  But,  as  the  months 
went  by,  he  grew  paler  and  weaker,  until  at  last 
he  became  so  thin  and  wan  that  he  looked  more 
like  a  ghost  than  a  man.  Then  people  began 
to  suspect  that  sorrow  alone  could  not  explain 
this  sudden  decline  of  a  man  so  young.  The 
doctors  said  that  Hachiyemon  was  not  suffering 


50  THE   STORY   OF    O-KAME 

from  any  known  form  of  disease :  they  could 
not  account  for  his  condition ;  but  they  suggested 
that  it  might  have  been  caused  by  some  very 
unusual  trouble  of  mind.  Hachiyemon's  parents 
questioned  him  in  vain ;  —  he  had  no  cause  for 
sorrow,  he  said,  other  than  what  they  already 
knew.  They  counselled  him  to  remarry ;  but 
he  protested  that  nothing  could  ever  induce  him 
to  break  his  promise  to  the  dead. 

Thereafter  Hachiyemon  continued  to  grow  visi 
bly  weaker,  day  by  day ;  and  his  family  despaired 
of  his  life.  But  one  day  his  mother,  who  felt  sure 
that  he  had  been  concealing  something  from  her, 
adjured  him  so  earnestly  to  tell  her  the  real  cause 
of  his  decline,  and  wept  so  bitterly  before  him, 
that  he  was  not  able  to  resist  her  entreaties. 

"  Mother,"  he  said,  "  it  is  very  difficult  to  speak 
about  this  matter,  either  to  you  or  to  any  one ; 
and,  perhaps,  when  I  have  told  you  everything, 
you  will  not  be  able  to  believe  me.  But  the  truth 
is  that  O-Kame  can  find  no  rest  in  the  other  world, 
and  that  the  Buddhist  services  repeated  for  her 
have  been  said  in  vain.  Perhaps  she  will  never 
be  able  to  rest  unless  I  go  with  her  on  the  long 


THE   STORY   OF   O-KAM£  51 

black  journey.  For  every  night  she  returns,  and 
lies  down  by  my  side.  Every  night,  since  the  day 
of  her  funeral,  she  has  come  back.  And  some 
times  I  doubt  if  she  be  really  dead ;  for  she  looks 
and  acts  just  as  when  she  lived,  —  except  that  she 
talks  to  me  only  in  whispers.  And  she  always 
bids  me  tell  no  one  that  she  comes.  It  may  be 
that  she  wants  me  to  die ;  and  I  should  not  care 
to  live  for  my  own  sake  only.  But  it  is  true,  as 
you  have  said,  that  my  body  really  belongs  to  my 
parents,  and  that  I  owe  to  them  the  first  duty. 
So  now,  mother,  I  tell  you  the  whole  truth.  .  .  . 
Yes :  every  night  she  comes,  just  as  I  am  about 
to  sleep ;  and  she  remains  until  dawn.  As  soon 
as  she  hears  the  temple-bell,  she  goes  away." 

When  the  mother  of  Hachiyemon  had  heard 
these  things,  she  was  greatly  alarmed ;  and,  hast 
ening  at  once  to  the  parish-temple,  she  told  the 
priest  all  that  her  son  had  confessed,  and  begged 
for  ghostly  help.  The  priest,  who  was  a  man  of 
great  age  and  experience,  listened  without  surprise 
to  the  recital,  and  then  said  to  her :  — 

"  It  is  not  the  first  time  that  I  have  known 
such  a  thing  to  happen ;  and  I  think  that  I  shall 


52  THE   STORY   OF   O-KAMfi 

be  able  to  save  your  son.  But  he  is  really  in 
great  danger.  I  have  seen  the  shadow  of  death 
upon  his  face ;  and,  if  O-Kame  return  but  once 
again,  he  will  never  behold  another  sunrise. 
Whatever  can  be  done  for  him  must  be  done 
quickly.  Say  nothing  of  the  matter  to  your  son ; 
but  assemble  the  members  of  both  families  as  soon 
as  possible,  and  tell  them  to  come  to  the  temple 
without  delay.  For  your  son's  sake  it  will  be 
necessary  to  open  the  grave  of  O-Kame. " 

So  the  relatives  assembled  at  the  temple ;  and 
when  the  priest  had  obtained  their  consent  to  the 
opening  of  the  sepulchre,  he  led  the  way  to  the 
cemetery.  Then,  under  his  direction,  the  tomb 
stone  of  O-Kame  was  shifted,  the  grave  opened, 
and  the  coffin  raised.  And  when  the  coffin-lid 
had  been  removed,  all  present  were  startled ;  for 
O-Kame  sat  before  them  with  a  smile  upon  her 
face,  seeming  as  comely  as  before  the  time  of  her 
sickness ;  and  there  was  not  any  sign  of  death 
upon  her.  But  when  the  priest  told  his  assistants 
to  lift  the  dead  woman  out  of  the  coffin,  the 
astonishment  changed  to  fear ;  for  the  corpse  was 
blood-warm  to  the  touch,  and  still  flexible  as  in 


THE   STORY   OF   O-KAME 


53 


life,  notwithstanding  the  squatting  posture  in  which 
it  had  remained  so  long.1 

It  was  borne  to  the  mortuary  chapel ;  and  there 
the  priest,  with  a  writing-brush,  traced  upon  the 
brow  and  breast  and  limbs  of  the  body  the  San 


scrit  characters  (Bonji)  of  certain  holy  talismanic 
words.  And  he  performed  a  Segaki-service  for 
the  spirit  of  O-Kame,  before  suffering  her  corpse 
to  be  restored  to  the  ground. 

1  The  Japanese  dead  are  placed  in   a  sitting   posture  in  the  coffin,  —  which 
is  almost  square  in  form. 


54  THE   STORY  OF    O-KAME 

She  never  again  visited  her  husband ;  and 
Hachiyemon  gradually  recovered  his  health  and 
strength.  But  whether  he  always  kept  his  prom 
ise,  the  Japanese  story-teller  does  not  say. 


Story   of  a    Fly 


Story  of  a  Fly 

ABOUT  two  hundred  years  ago,  there  lived 
in  Kyoto  a  merchant  named  Kazariya 
Kyubei.  His  shop  was  in  the  street  called 
Teramachidori,  a  little  south  of  the  Shimabara 
thoroughfare.  He  had  a  maid-servant  named 
Tama, —  a  native  of  the  province  of  Wakasa. 

Tama  was  kindly  treated  by  Kyubei  and  his 
wife,  and  appeared  to  be  sincerely  attached  to 
them.  But  she  never  cared  to  dress  nicely,  like 
other  girls ;  and  whenever  she  had  a  holiday  she 
would  go  out  in  her  working-dress,  notwithstand 
ing  that  she  had  been  given  several  pretty  robes. 
After  she  had  been  in  the  service  of  Kyubei  for 
about  five  years,  he  one  day  asked  her  why  she 
never  took  any  pains  to  look  neat. 

Tama  blushed  at  the  reproach  implied  by  this 
question,  and  answered  respectfully  :  — 

"When  my  parents  died,  I  was  a  very  little 
girl ;  and,  as  they  had  no  other  child,  it  became 

57 


58  STORY    OF   A    FLY 

my  duty  to  have  the  Buddhist  services  performed 
on  their  behalf.  At  that  time  I  could  not  obtain 
the  means  to  do  so ;  but  I  resolved  to  have  their 
ibai  [mortuary  tablets]  placed  in  the  temple  called 
Jorakuji,  and  to  have  the  rites  performed,  so 
soon  as  I  could  earn  the  money  required.  And 
in  order  to  fulfil  this  resolve  I  have  tried  to  be 
saving  of  my  money  and  my  clothes  ;  —  perhaps 
I  have  been  too  saving,  as  you  have  found  me 
negligent  of  my  person.  But  I  have  already  been 
able  to  put  by  about  one  hundred  momme  of  silver 
for  the  purpose  which  I  have  mentioned ;  and 
hereafter  I  will  try  to  appear  before  you  looking 
neat.  So  I  beg  that  you  will  kindly  excuse  my 
past  negligence  and  rudeness." 

Kyubei  was  touched  by  this  simple  confession ; 
and  he  spoke  to  the  girl  kindly,  —  assuring  her 
that  she  might  consider  herself  at  liberty  thence 
forth  to  dress  as  she  pleased,  and  commending 
her  filial  piety. 

Soon  after  this  conversation,  the  maid  Tama 
was  able  to  have  the  tablets  of  her  parents  placed 
in  the  temple  Jorakuji,  and  to  have  the  appropri 
ate  services  performed.  Of  the  money  which  she 


STORY    OF   A    FLY  59 

had  saved  she  thus  expended  seventy  momme;  and 
the  remaining  thirty  momme  she  asked  her  mistress 
to  keep  for  her. 

But  early  in  the  following  winter  Tama  was 
suddenly  taken  ill ;  and  after  a  brief  sickness  she 
died,  on  the  eleventh  day  of  the  first  month  of 
the  fifteenth  year  of  Genroku  [1702].  Kyubei 
and  his  wife  were  much  grieved  by  her  death. 

Now,  about  ten  days  later,  a  very  large  fly  came 
into  the  house,  and  began  to  fly  round  and  round 
the  head  of  Kyubei.  This  surprised  Kyubei, 
because  no  flies  of  any  kind  appear,  as  a  rule, 
during  the  Period  of  Greatest  Cold,  and  the  larger 
kinds  of  flies  are  seldom  seen  except  in  the  warm 
season.  The  fly  annoyed  Kyubei  so  persistently 
that  he  took  the  trouble  to  catch  it,  and  put  it 
out  of  the  house,  —  being  careful  the  while  to 
injure  it  in  no  way  ;  for  he  was  a  devout  Buddhist. 
It  soon  came  back  again,  and  was  again  caught 
and  thrown  out ;  but  it  entered  a  third  time. 
Kyubei's  wife  thought  this  a  strange  thing.  "  I 
wonder,"  she  said,  "  if  it  is  Tama."  [For  the 
dead  —  particularly  those  who  pass  to  the  state 
of  Gaki  —  sometimes  return  in  the  form  of  in- 


60  STORY   OF   A   FLY 

sects.]  Kyubei  laughed,  and  made  answer,  "  Per 
haps  we  can  find  out  by  marking  it."  He  caught 
the  fly,  and  slightly  nicked  the  tips  of  its  wings 
with  a  pair  of  scissors,  —  after  which  he  carried  it  to 
a  considerable  distance  from  the  house  and  let  it  go. 

Next  day  it  returned.  Kyubei  still  doubted 
whether  its  return  had  any  ghostly  significance. 
He  caught  it  again,  painted  its  wings  and  body 
with  beni  (rouge),  carried  it  away  from  the  house 
to  a  much  greater  distance  than  before,  and  set 
it  free.  But,  two  days  later,  it  came  back,  all  red ; 
and  Kyubei  ceased  to  doubt. 

"  I  think  it  is  Tama,"  he  said.  "  She  wants 
something  ;  —  but  what  does  she  want  ?  " 

The  wife  responded  :  — 

"  I  have  still  thirty  momm'e  of  her  savings.  Per 
haps  she  wants  us  to  pay  that  money  to  the  temple, 
for  a  Buddhist  service  on  behalf  of  her  spirit.  Tama 
was  always  very  anxious  about  her  next  birth." 

As  she  spoke,  the  fly  fell  from  the  paper  win 
dow  on  which  it  had  been  resting.  Kyubei  picked 
it  up,  and  found  that  it  was  dead. 

Thereupon  the  husband  and  wife  resolved  to  go 
to  the  temple  at  once,  and  to  pay  the  girl's  money 


STORY   OF   A   FLY 


61 


to  the  priests.     They  put  the  body  of  the  fly  into 
a  little  box,  and  took  it  along  with  them. 

Jiku  Shonin,  the  chief  priest  of  the  temple,  on 
hearing  the  story  of  the  fly,  decided  that  Kyubei 
and  his  wife  had  acted  rightly  in  the  matter.  Then 
Jiku  Shonin  performed  a  S'egdki  service  on  behalf 


of  the  spirit 
and  over  the 
fly  were  re- 
rolls  of  the 
And  the  box 
the  body  of 
buried  in  the 
the  temple ; 
place  a  sotoba 
appropriately 


of  T  am  a ; 
body  of  the 
cited  the  eight 
sutra  My  of  en. 
containi  ng 
the  fly  was 
grounds  of 
and above  the 
was  set  up, 
inscribed. 


Story  of  a   Pheasant 


Story  of  a  Pheasant 

IN    the    Toyama    district    of    the   province    of 
Bishu,  there    formerly  lived    a   young  farmer 
and   his  wife.     Their  farm  was   situated  in   a 
lonely  place,  among  the  hills. 

One  night  the  wife  dreamed  that  her  father-in- 
law,  who  had  died  some  years  before,  came  to  her 
and  said,  "  To-morrow  I  shall  be  in  great  danger  : 
try  to  save  me  if  you  can!"  In  the  morning  she 
told  this  to  her  husband ;  and  they  talked  about 
the  dream.  Both  imagined  that  the  dead  man 
wanted  something ;  but  neither  could  imagine 
what  the  words  of  the  vision  signified. 

After  breakfast,  the  husband  went  to  the  fields ; 
but  the  wife  remained  at  her  loom.  Presently 
she  was  startled  by  a  great  shouting  outside.  She 
went  to  the  door,  and  saw  the  Jit5 1  of  the  district, 
with  a  hunting  party,  approaching  the  farm.  While 
she  stood  watching  them,  a  pheasant  ran  by  her 

lfThe  lord  of  the  district,  who  acted  both  as  governor  and  magistrate. 

65 


66  STORY   OF   A   PHEASANT 

into  the  house ;  and  she  suddenly  remembered  her 
dream.  "  Perhaps  it  is  my  father-in-law,"  she 
thought  to  herself;  —  "I  must  try  to  save  it!" 
Then,  hurrying  in  after  the  bird,  —  a  fine  male 
pheasant,  —  she  caught  it  without  any  difficulty, 
put  it  into  the  empty  rice-pot,  and  covered  the 
pot  with  the  lid. 

A  moment  later  some  of  the  Jito's  followers 
entered,  and  asked  her  whether  she  had  seen  a 
pheasant.  She  answered  boldly  that  she  had  not; 
but  one  of  the  hunters  declared  that  he  had  seen 
the  bird  run  into  the  house.  So  the  party  searched 
for  it,  peeping  into  every  nook  and  corner;  but 
nobody  thought  of  looking  into  the  rice-pot. 
After  looking  everywhere  else  to  no  purpose,  the 
men  decided  that  the  bird  must  have  escaped 
through  some  hole ;  and  they  went  away. 

When  the  farmer  came  home  his  wife  told  him 
about  the  pheasant,  which  she  had  left  in  the  rice- 
pot,  so  that  he  might  see  it.  "When  I  caught 
it,"  she  said,  "it  did  not  struggle  in  the  least; 
and  it  remained  very  quiet  in  the  pot.  I  really 
think  that  it  is  father-in-law."  The  farmer  went 
to  the  pot,  lifted  the  lid,  and  took  out  the  bird. 


STORY   OF   A   PHEASANT  67 

It  remained  still  in  his  hands,  as  if  tame,  and 
looked  at  him  as  if  accustomed  to  his  presence. 
One  of  its  eyes  was  blind.  "  Father  was  blind 
of  one  eye,"  the  farmer  said,  —  "the  right  eye; 
and  the  right  eye  of  this  bird  is  blind.  Really,  I 
think  it  is  father.  See !  it  looks  at  us  just  as 
father  used  to  do !  ...  Poor  father  must  have 
thought  to  himself,  (  Now  that  I  am  a  bird,  better 
to  give  my  body  to  my  children  for  food  than  to  let 
the  hunters  have  it.y  .  .  .  And  that  explains  your 
dream  of  last  night/'  he  added,  —  turning  to  his 
wife  with  an  evil  smile  as  he  wrung  the  pheasant's 
neck. 

At  the  sight  of  that  brutal  act,  the  woman 
screamed,  and  cried  out :  — 

"  Oh,  you  wicked  man  !  Oh,  you  devil  !  Only 
a  man  with  the  heart  of  a  devil  could  do  what 
you  have  done  !  .  .  .  And  I  would  rather  die 
than  continue  to  be  the  wife  of  such  a  man ! " 

And  she  sprang  to  the  door,  without  waiting 
even  to  put  on  her  sandals.  He  caught  her 
sleeve  as  she  leaped;  but  she  broke  away  from 
him,  and  ran  out,  sobbing  as  she  ran.  And 
she  ceased  not  to  run,  barefooted,  till  she  reached 
the  town,  when  she  hastened  directly  to  the  resi- 


68 


STORY   OF   A    PHEASANT 


dence  of  the  Jito.  Then,  with  many  tears,  she 
told  the  Jito  everything  :  her  dream  of  the  night 
before  the  hunting,  and  how  she  had  hidden  the 
pheasant  in  order  to  save  it,  and  how  her  hus 
band  had  mocked  her,  and  had  killed  it. 

Jit5  spoke  to  her 

gave  orders 
should  be 
for ;  but  he 
his  officers  to 


kindly,  and 
that  she 
well  cared 
commanded 
seize  her  hus- 


Next  day 
was  brought 
ment ;  and, 
been  made 
the  truth 
the  killing  of 


band. 


the  farmer 
up  for  judg- 
after  he  had 
to  confess 
concerning 
the  pheasant, 


sentence    was    pronounced.       The     Jitd     said     to 
him :  — 

"  Only  a  person  of  evil  heart  could  have  acted 
as  you  have  acted ;  and  the  presence  of  so  per 
verse  a  being  is  a  misfortune  to  the  community 
in  which  he  happens  to  reside.  The  people 
under  Our  jurisdiction  are  people  who  respect 


STORY   OF   A   PHEASANT  69 

the    sentiment    of   filial    piety ;    and    among   them 
you  cannot  be  suffered  to  live." 

So  the  farmer  was  banished  from  the  district, 
and  forbidden  ever  to  return  to  it  on  pain  of 
death.  But  to  the  woman  the  Jitd  made  a  dona 
tion  of  land ;  and  at  a  later  time  he  caused  her 
to  be  provided  with  a  good  husband. 


The  Story  of  Chugoro 


The   Story    of    Chugoro 

ALONG  time  ago  there  lived,  in  the  Koishi- 
kawa  quarter  of  Yedo,  a   hatamoto   named 
Suzuki,  whose  yashiki  was  situated  on  the 
bank    of  the    Yedogawa,  not  far  from    the    bridge 
called    Naka-no-hashi.     And   among    the    retainers 
of  this  Suzuki  there  was  an  ashigaru1  named  Chu 
goro.     Chugoro  was  a  handsome  lad,  very  amiable 
and  clever,  and  much  liked  by  his  comrades. 

For  several  years  Chugord  remained  in  the  ser 
vice  of  Suzuki,  conducting  himself  so  well  that  no 
fault  was  found  with  him.  But  at  last  the  other 
ashigaru  discovered  that  Chugoro  was  in  the  habit 
of  leaving  the  yashiki  every  night,  by  way  of  the 
garden,  and  staying  out  until  a  little  before  dawn. 
At  first  they  said  nothing  to  him  about  this  strange 
behaviour ;  for  his  absences  did  not  interfere  with 
any  regular  duty,  and  were  supposed  to  be  caused 

1  The  asbigaru  were  the  lowest  class  of  retainers  in  military  service. 
73 


74  THE   STORY   OF   CHUGORO 

by  some  love-affair.  But  after  a  time  he  began 
to  look  pale  and  weak ;  and  his  comrades,  sus 
pecting  some  serious  folly,  decided  to  interfere. 
Therefore,  one  evening,  just  as  he  was  about  to 
steal  away  from  the  house,  an  elderly  retainer  called 
him  aside,  and  said  :  — 

"Chugoro,  my  lad,  we  know  that  you  go  out 
every  night  and  stay  away  until  early  morning; 
and  we  have  observed  that  you  are  looking  un 
well.  We  fear  that  you  are  keeping  bad  company, 
and  injuring  your  health.  And  unless  you  can 
give  a  good  reason  for  your  conduct,  we  shall 
think  that  it  is  our  duty  to  report  this  matter  to 
the  Chief  Officer.  In  any  case,  since  we  are  your 
comrades  and  friends,  it  is  but  right  that  we  should 
know  why  you  go  out  at  night,  contrary  to  the 
custom  of  this  house." 

Chugor5  appeared  to  be  very  much  embarrassed 
and  alarmed  by  these  words.  But  after  a  short 
silence  he  passed  into  the  garden,  followed  by  his 
comrade.  When  the  two  found  themselves  well 
out  of  hearing  of  the  rest,  Chugord  stopped,  and 
said :  — 

"  I  will  now  tell  you  everything ;  but  I  must 
entreat  you  to  keep  my  secret.  If  you  repeat 


THE   STORY    OF    CHUGORO  75 

what  I   tell  you,  some  great  misfortune  may  befall 
me. 

"  It  was  in  the  early  part  of  last  spring  —  about 
five  months  ago  —  that  I  first  began  to  go  out 
at  night,  on  account  of  a  love-affair.  One  even 
ing,  when  I  was  returning  to  the  yashiki  after 
a  visit  to  my  parents,  I  saw  a  woman  standing 
by  the  riverside,  not  far  from  the  main  gateway. 
She  was  dressed  like  a  person  of  high  rank ;  and 
I  thought  it  strange  that  a  woman  so  finely  dressed 
should  be  standing  there  alone  at  such  an  hour. 
But  I  did  not  think  that  I  had  any  right  to  ques 
tion  her ;  and  I  was  about  to  pass  her  by,  with 
out  speaking,  when  she  stepped  forward  and 
pulled  me  by  the  sleeve.  Then  I  saw  that  she 
was  very  young  and  handsome.  'Will  you  not 
walk  with  me  as  far  as  the  bridge  ? '  she  said ; 
'  I  have  something  to  tell  you/  Her  voice  was 
very  soft  and  pleasant;  and  she  smiled  as  she 
spoke ;  and  her  smile  was  hard  to  resist.  So  I 
walked  with  her  toward  the  bridge ;  and  on  the 
way  she  told  me  that  she  had  often  seen  me 
going  in  and  out  of  the  yashiki,  and  had  taken 
a  fancy  to  me.  ( I  wish  to  have  you  for  my  hus 
band/  she  said ;  — c  if  you  can  like  me,  we  shall 


;6  THE   STORY   OF   CHUGORO 

be  able  to  make  each  other  very  happy/  I  did 
not  know  how  to  answer  her;  but  I  thought  her 
very  charming.  As  we  neared  the  bridge,  she 
pulled  my  sleeve  again,  and  led  me  down  the 
bank  to  the  very  edge  of  the  river.  c  Come  in 
with  me/  she  whispered,  and  pulled  me  toward 
the  water.  It  is  deep  there,  as  you  know ;  and 
I  became  all  at  once  afraid  of  her,  and  tried  to 
turn  back.  She  smiled,  and  caught  me  by  the 
wrist,  and  said,  c  Oh,  you  must  never  be  afraid 
with  me ! '  And,  somehow,  at  the  touch  of  her 
hand,  I  became  more  helpless  than  a  child.  I 
felt  like  a  person  in  a  dream  who  tries  to  run, 
and  cannot  move  hand  or  foot.  Into  the  deep 
water  she  stepped,  and  drew  me  with  her;  and  I 
neither  saw  nor  heard  nor  felt  anything  more 
until  I  found  myself  walking  beside  her  through 
what  seemed  to  be  a  great  palace,  full  of  light. 
I  was  neither  wet  nor  cold :  everything  around 
me  was  dry  and  warm  and  beautiful.  I  could 
not  understand  where  I  was,  nor  how  I  had  come 
there.  The  woman  led  me  by  the  hand :  we 
passed  through  room  after  room,  —  through  ever 
so  many  rooms,  all  empty,  but  very  fine,  —  until 
we  entered  into  a  guest-room  of  a  thousand  mats. 


THE   STORY   OF    CHUGORO  77 

Before  a  great  alcove,  at  the  farther  end,  lights 
were  burning,  and  cushions  laid  as  for  a  feast ; 
but  I  saw  no  guests.  She  led  me  to  the  place 
of  honour,  by  the  alcove,  and  seated  herself  in 
front  of  me,  and  said :  ( This  is  my  home :  do 
you  think  that  you  could  be  happy  with  me  here?' 
As  she  asked  the  question  she  smiled ;  and  I 
thought  that  her  smile  was  more  beautiful  than 
anything  else  in  the  world ;  and  out  of  my  heart 
I  answered,  c  Yes.  .  .  .'  In  the  same  moment  I 
remembered  the  story  of  Urashima ;  and  I  im 
agined  that  she  might  be  the  daughter  of  a  god ; 
but  I  feared  to  ask  her  any  questions.  .  .  .  Pres 
ently  maid-servants  came  in,  bearing  rice-wine  and 
many  dishes,  which  they  set  before  us.  Then 
she  who  sat  before  me  said :  c  To-night  shall 
be  our  bridal  night,  because  you  like  me ;  and 
this  is  our  wedding-feast/  We  pledged  ourselves 
to  each  other  for  the  time  of  seven  existences ; 
and  after  the  banquet  we  were  conducted  to  a 
bridal  chamber,  which  had  been  prepared  for  us. 

"  It  was  yet  early  in  the  morning  when  she 
awoke  me,  and  said :  '  My  dear  one,  you  are  now 
indeed  my  husband.  But  for  reasons  which  I 
cannot  tell  you,  and  which  you  must  not  ask, 


78  THE   STORY   OF   CHUGORO 

it  is  necessary  that  our  marriage  remain  secret. 
To  keep  you  here  until  daybreak  would  cost 
both  of  us  our  lives.  Therefore  do  not,  I  beg 
of  you,  feel  displeased  because  I  must  now  send 
you  back  to  the  house  of  your  lord.  You  can 
come  to  me  to-night  again,  and  every  night  here 
after,  at  the  same  hour  that  we  first  met.  Wait 
always  for  me  by  the  bridge;  and  you  will  not 
have  to  wait  long.  But  remember,  above  all 
things,  that  our  marriage  must  be  a  secret,  and 
that,  if  you  talk  about  it,  we  shall  probably  be 
separated  forever/ 

"I  promised  to  obey  her  in  all  things, — 
remembering  the  fate  of  Urashima,  —  and  she 
conducted  me  through  many  rooms,  all  empty 
and  beautiful,  to  the  entrance.  There  she  again 
took  me  by  the  wrist,  and  everything  suddenly 
became  dark,  and  I  knew  nothing  more  until  I 
found  myself  standing  alone  on  the  river  bank, 
close  to  the  Naka-no-hashi.  When  I  got  back  to 
the  yashiki,  the  temple  bells  had  not  yet  begun 
to  ring. 

"In  the  evening  I  went  again  to  the  bridge, 
at  the  hour  she  had  named,  and  I  found  her 
waiting  for  me.  She  took  me  with  her,  as  before, 


THE   STORY   OF    CHUGORO  79 

into  the  deep  water,  and  into  the  wonderful  place 
where  we  had  passed  our  bridal  night.  And 
every  night,  since  then,  I  have  met  and  parted 
from  her  in  the  same  way.  To-night  she  will 
certainly  be  waiting  for  me,  and  I  would  rather 
die  than  disappoint  her :  therefore  I  must  go.  ... 
But  let  me  again  entreat  you,  my  friend,  never 
to  speak  to  any  one  about  what  I  have  told 
you." 

The  elder  ashigaru  was  surprised  and  alarmed 
by  this  story.  He  felt  that  Chugoro  had  told 
him  the  truth;  and  the  truth  suggested  unpleas 
ant  possibilities.  Probably  the  whole  experience 
was  an  illusion,  and  an  illusion  produced  by  some 
evil  power  for  a  malevolent  end.  Nevertheless, 
if  really  bewitched,  the  lad  was  rather  to  be  pitied 
than  blamed ;  and  any  forcible  interference  would 
be  likely  to  result  in  mischief.  So  the  ashigaru 
answered  kindly :  — 

"  I  shall  never  speak  of  what  you  have  told 
me  —  never,  at  least,  while  you  remain  alive  and 
well.  Go  and  meet  the  woman;  but  —  beware 
of  her!  I  fear  that  you  are  being  deceived  by 
some  wicked  spirit." 


8o  THE   STORY   OF   CHUGORO 

Chugor5  only  smiled  at  the  old  man's  warning, 
and  hastened  away.  Several  hours  later  he  re- 
entered  the  yashiki,  with  a  strangely  dejected 
look.  "  Did  you  meet  her  ? "  whispered  his 
comrade.  "  No,"  replied  Chugor5 ;  "  she  was 
not  there.  For  the  first  time,  she  was  not  there. 
I  think  that  she  will  never  meet  me  again.  I 
did  wrong  to  tell  you  ;  —  I  was  very  foolish  to 
break  my  promise.  .  .  ."  The  other  vainly  tried 
to  console  him.  Chugoro  lay  down,  and  spoke 
no  word  more.  He  was  trembling  from  head 
to  foot,  as  if  he  had  caught  a  chill. 

When  the  temple  bells  announced  the  hour 
of  dawn,  Chugoro  tried  to  get  up,  and  fell  back 
senseless.  He  was  evidently  sick,  —  deathly 
sick.  A  Chinese  physician  was  summoned. 

"  Why,  the  man  has  no  blood !  "  exclaimed 
the  doctor,  after  a  careful  examination  ;  —  "  there 
is  nothing  but  water  in  his  veins !  It  will  be 
very  difficult  to  save  him.  .  .  .  What  malefi 
cence  is  this  ?  " 

Everything  was  done  that  could  be  done  to 
save  Chugoro's  life  —  but  in  vain.  He  died  as 


THE   STORY   OF   CHUGORO 


81 


the  sun  went  down.  Then  his  comrade  related 
the  whole  story. 

"  Ah  !  I  might  have  suspected  as  much  !  "  ex 
claimed  the  doctor.  ...  "  No  power  could  have 
saved  him.  He  was  not  the  first  whom  she 
destroyed." 

"  Who  is  she  ?  —  or  what  is  she  ?  "  the  asbi- 
garu  asked,  —  "a  Fox- Woman  ?  " 


"  No ;  she  has  been  haunting  this  river  from 
ancient  time.  She  loves  the  blood  of  the 
young.  .  .  ." 

"  A    Serpent-Woman  ?  —  A    Dragon- Woman  ?  " 


82  THE    STORY   OF    CHUGORO 

"  No,  no  !  If  you  were  to  see  her  under  that 
bridge  by  daylight,  she  would  appear  to  you  a 
very  loathsome  creature." 

"  But  what  kind  of  a  creature  ? " 

"  Simply  a  Frog,  —  a  great  and  ugly  Frog  !  " 


A   Woman's   Diary 


•./•••:f  ;,^.:^;^V. 
-•::-:  4"  .'v:::n'feVx4 
^e;;;.;.^,;:,;-.^:.,.-:^';^ 

"S;KMJMI^ 

•;6?;//r^vi.M^.i^l 


A  Woman's  Diary 

RECENTLY  there  was  put  into  my  hands  a 
somewhat  remarkable  manuscript,  —  seven 
teen    long    narrow    sheets    of    soft    paper, 
pierced  with  a  silken  string,  and  covered  with  fine 
Japanese  characters.     It  was  a  kind  of  diary,  con 
taining    the    history    of    a    woman's    married    life, 
recorded  by  herself.     The  writer  was  dead  ;   and  the 
diary  had   been   found  in  a  small  work-box  (bari- 
bako)  which  had  belonged  to  her. 

The  friend  who  lent  me  the  manuscript  gave  me 
leave  to  translate  as  much  of  it  as  I  might  think 
worth  publishing.  I  have  gladly  availed  myself 
of  this  unique  opportunity  to  present  in  English 
the  thoughts  and  feelings,  joys  and  sorrows,  of  a 
simple  woman  of  the  people — just  as  she  her 
self  recorded  them  in  the  frankest  possible  way, 
never  dreaming  that  any  foreign  eye  would  read 
her  humble  and  touching  memoir. 

But  out  of  respect  to  her  gentle  ghost,  I  have 

85 


86  A   WOMAN'S    DIARY 

tried  to  use  the  manuscript  in  such  a  way  only  as 
could  not  cause  her  the  least  pain  if  she  were 
yet  in  the  body,  and  able  to  read  me.  Some 
parts  I  have  omitted,  because  I  thought  them 
sacred.  Also  I  have  left  out  a  few  details  relat 
ing  to  customs  or  to  local  beliefs  that  the  West 
ern  reader  could  scarcely  understand,  even  with  the 
aid  of  notes.  And  the  names,  of  course,  have 
been  changed.  Otherwise  I  have  followed  the 
text  as  closely  as  I  could,  —  making  no  changes 
of  phrase  except  when  the  Japanese  original  could 
not  be  adequately  interpreted  by  a  literal  rendering. 

In  addition  to  the  facts  stated  or  suggested  in 
the  diary  itself,  I  could  learn  but  very  little  of 
the  writer's  personal  history.  She  was  a  woman 
of  the  poorest  class ;  and  from  her  own  narrative 
it  appears  that  she  remained  unmarried  until  she 
was  nearly  thirty.  A  younger  sister  had  been 
married  several  years  previously ;  and  the  diary 
does  not  explain  this  departure  from  custom.  A 
small  photograph  found  with  the  manuscript 
shows  that  its  author  never  could  have  been 
called  good-looking ;  but  the  face  has  a  certain 
pleasing  expression  of  shy  gentleness.  Her  hus- 


A   WOMAN'S   DIARY  87 

band  was  a  kozukai?  employed  in  one  of  the 
great  public  offices,  chiefly  for  night  duty,  at  a 
salary  of  ten  yen  per  month.  In  order  to  help 
him  to  meet  the  expenses  of  housekeeping,  she 
made  cigarettes  for  a  tobacco  dealer. 

The  manuscript  shows  that  she  must  have  been 
at  school  for  some  years :  she  could  write  the 
kana  very  nicely,  but  she  had  not  learned  many 
Chinese  characters,  —  so  that  her  work  resembles 
the  work  of  a  schoolgirl.  But  it  is  written  with 
out  mistakes,  and  skilfully.  The  dialect  is  of 
Tokyo,  —  the  common  speech  of  the  city  peo 
ple,  —  full  of  idiomatic  expressions,  but  entirely 
free  from  coarseness. 

Some  one  might  naturally  ask  why  this  poor 
woman,  so  much  occupied  with  the  constant 
struggle  for  mere  existence,  should  have  taken 
the  pains  to  write  down  what  she  probably  never 
intended  to  be  read.  I  would  remind  such  a 
questioner  of  the  old  Japanese  teaching  that  lit 
erary  composition  is  the  best  medicine  for  sor- 

1  A  kozukai  is  a  man-servant  chiefly  employed  as  doorkeeper  and  messenger. 
The  term  is  rendered  better  by  tHe  French  word  concierge  than  by  our  English  word 
*'  porter  "  j  but  neither  expression  exactly  meets  the  Japanese  meaning. 


88  A   WOMAN'S    DIARY 

row ;  and  I  would  remind  him  also  of  the  fact 
that,  even  among  the  poorest  classes,  poems  are 
still  composed  upon  all  occasions  of  joy  or  pain* 
The  latter  part  of  the  diary  was  written  in  lonely 
hours  of  illness ;  and  I  suppose  that  she  then 
wrote  chiefly  in  order  to  keep  her  thoughts  com 
posed  at  a  time  when  solitude  had  become  dan 
gerous  for  her.  A  little  before  her  death,  her 
mind  gave  way ;  and  these  final  pages  probably 
represent  the  last  brave  struggle  of  the  spirit 
against  the  hopeless  weakness  of  the  flesh. 

I  found  that  the  manuscript  was  inscribed,  on 
the  outside  sheet,  with  the  title,  Mukasbi-banashi  : 
"A  Story  of  Old  Times/'  According  to  cir 
cumstances,  the  word  mukashi  may  signify  either 
"  long  ago,"  in  reference  to  past  centuries,  or 
"  old  times,''  in  reference  to  one's  own  past  life. 
The  latter  is  the  obvious  meaning  in  the  present 
case. 

MUKASHI-BANASHI 

On  the  evening  of  the  twenty-fifth  day  of  the  ninth 
month  of  the  twenty-eighth  year  of  Meiji  [1895],  the  man 
of  the  opposite  house  came  and  asked  :  — 

"  As  for  the  eldest  daughter  of  this  family,  is  it  agreeable 
that  she  be  disposed  of  in  marriage  ?  " 


A   WOMAN'S    DIARY  89 

Then  the  answer  was  given  :  — 

"  Even  though  the  matter  were  agreeable  \to  our  wishes'} , 
no  preparation  for  such  an  event  has  yet  been  made."1 

The  man  of  the  opposite  house  said  :  — 

"  But  as  no  preparation  is  needed  in  this  case,  will  you  not 
honourably  give  her  to  the  person  for  whom  I  speak  ?  He 
is  said  to  be  a  very  steady  man  ;  and  he  is  thirty-eight  years 
of  age.  As  I  thought  your  eldest  girl  to  be  about  twenty- 
six,  I  proposed  her  to  him.  .  .  .  ' 

"  No,  —  she  is  twenty-nine  years  old,"  was   answered. 

"  Ah  !  .  .  .  That  being  the  case,  I  must  again  speak 
to  the  other  party  ;  and  I  shall  honourably  consult  with  you 
after  I  have  seen  him." 

So  saying,  the  man  went  away. 

Next  evening  the  man  came  again, — this  time  with  the 
wife  of  Okada-Shi  2  \a  friend  of  the  family^  ,  —  and  said  :  — 

"  The  other  party  is  satisfied  ;  —  so,  if  you  are  willing, 
the  match  can  be  made." 

Father  replied :  — 

"As  the  two  are,  both  of  them,  shlchi-s'eki-kin  ["  seven- 

1  The  reader  must  understand  that  "  the  man  of  the  opposite  house  "is  acting 
as  nakodo,  or  match-maker,  in  the  interest  of  a  widower  who  wishes  to  remarry. 
By  the  statement,  "no  preparation  has  been  made,"  the  father  means  that  he  is 
unable  to  provide  for  his  daughter's  marriage,  and  cannot  furnish  her  with  a  bridal 
outfit, — clothing,  household  furniture,  etc., — as  required  by  custom.      The  reply 
that  u  no  preparation  is  needed"  signifies  that  the  proposed  husband  is  willing  to 
take  the  girl  without  any  marriage  gifts. 

2  Throughout    this    Ms.,    except   in    one   instance,   the   more    respectful    form 
Sama  never  occurs  after  a  masculine  name,  the  popular  form  Sbi  being  used  even 
after  the  names  of  kindred. 


90  A   WOMAN'S    DIARY 

red-metal"],1  they  should  have  the  same  nature;  —  so  I 
think  that  no  harm  can  come  of  it." 

The  match-maker  asked  :  -r- 

a  Then  how  would  it  be  to  arrange  for  the  miai2  ["  see- 
meeting  "]  to-morrow  ?  " 

Father  said :  — 

"  I  suppose  that  everything  really  depends  upon  the  En 
[karma-relation  formed  in  previous  states  of  existence] .... 
Well,  then,  I  beg  that  you  will  honourably  meet  us  to-mor 
row  evening  at  the  house  of  Okada." 

Thus  the  betrothal  promise  was  given  on  both  sides. 

The  person  of  the  opposite  house  wanted  me  to  go  with 
him  next  evening  to  Okada's ;  but  I  said  that  I  wished  to 
go  with  my  mother  only,  as  from  the  time  of  taking  such 
a  first  step  one  could  not  either  retreat  or  advance. 

When  I  went  with  mother  to  the  house,  we  were  wel 
comed  in  with  the  words,  "  Kocbira  e ! "  Then  [my 
future  husband  and  I]  greeted  each  other  for  the  first 
time.  But  somehow  I  felt  so  much  ashamed  that  I  could 
not  look  at  him. 

Then  Okada-Shi  said  to  Namiki-Shi  [the  proposed  hus 
band]  :  "  Now  that  you  have  nobody  to  consult  with  at 
home,  would  it  not  be  well  for  you  to  snatch  your  luck 
where  you  find  it,  as  the  proverb  says,  — c  Zen  wa  isoge '  ?  " 

The  answer  was  made  :  — 

1  The  father  has  evidently  been  consulting  a  fortune-telling  book,  such  as  the 
San-xe-so,  or  a  professional  diviner.      The  allusion  to  the  astrologically  determined 
natures,  or  temperaments,  of  the  pair  could  scarcely  be  otherwise  explained. 

2  Miai  is  a  term  used  to  signify  a  meeting  arranged  in  order  to  enable  the  parties 
affianced  to  see  each  other  before  the  wedding-day. 


A   WOMAN'S    DIARY  91 

"  As  for  me,  I  am  well  satisfied  ;  but  I  do  not  know 
what  the  feeling  may  be  on  the  other  side." 

"  If  it  be  honourably  deigned  to  take  me  as  it  is  hon 
ourably  known  that  I  am  .  .  .  " l  I  said. 

The  match-maker  said  :  — 

"  The  matter  being  so,  what  would  be  a  good  day  for 
the  wedding  ?  " 

[Namaki-Shi  answered  :  — ] 

"Though  I  can  be  at  home  to-morrow,  perhaps  the 
first  day  of  the  tenth  month  would  be  a  better  day." 

But  Okada-Shi  at  once  said  :  — 

"  As  there  is  cause  for  anxiety  about  the  house  being 
unoccupied  while  Namiki-Shi  is  absent  [on  night-duty']^ 
to-morrow  would  perhaps  be  the  better  day  —would  it 
not  ?  " 

Though  at  first  that  seemed  to  me  much  too  soon,  I 
presently  remembered  that  the  next  day  was  a  Taian-nichi2 

1  Meaning  :    "  I  am  ready  to  become  your  wife,  if  you  are  willing  to  take  me 
as  you  have  been  informed  that  I  am,  — a  poor  girl  without  money  or  clothes." 

2  Lucky  and  unlucky  days  were  named  and  symbolized  as  follows,  according  to 
the  old  Japanese  astrological  system  :  — 

SENKATSU  :  —  forenoon  good  }  afternoon  bad. 


TOMOBIKI  :  —  forenoon  good  ;   afternoon  good  at  the  beginning 
and  the  end,  but  bad  in  the  middle. 


SKNPU  :  —  forenoon  bad  ;  afternoon  good. 


92  A   WOMAN'S    DIARY 

[perfectly  fortunate  day]  :  so  I  gave  my  consent ;  and  we 
went  home. 

When  I  told  father,  he  was  not  pleased.  He  said  that 
it  was  too  soon,  and  that  a  delay  of  at  least  three  or  four 
days  ought  to  have  been  allowed.  Also  he  said  that  the 
direction  [hogaku]  1  was  not  lucky,  and  that  other  condi 
tions  were  not  favourable. 

I  said  :  — 

"  But  I  have  already  promised  ;  and  I  cannot  now  ask  to 
have  the  day  changed.  Indeed  it  would  be  a  great  pity  if  a 
thief  were  to  enter  the  house  in  [his]  absence.  As  for  the 
matter  of  the  direction  being  unlucky,  even  though  I  should 
have  to  die  on  that  account,  I  would  not  complain ;  for  I 
should  die  in  my  own  husband's  house.  .  .  .  And  to-mor 
row,"  I  added,  "  I  shall  be  too  busy  to  call  on  Goto  [her 
brother-in-law]  :  so  I  must  go  there  now." 

I  went  to  Goto's ;  but,  when  I  saw  him,  I  felt  afraid  to 


BUTSUMETSU  :  —  wholly  unlucky. 


TAIAN  :  —  altogether  good. 


SHAKO  :  —  all  unlucky,  except  at  noon. 


o 
o 


1  This  statement  also  implies  that  a  professional  diviner  has  been  consulted. 
The  reference  to  the  direction,  or  hogaku,  can  be  fully  understood  only  by  those 
conversant  with  the  old  Chinese  nature-philosophy. 


A   WOMAN'S   DIARY  93 

say  exactly  what  I  had  come  to  say.  I  suggested  it  only 
by  telling  him  :  — 

"  To-morrow  I  have  to  go  to  a  strange  house." 

Goto  immediately  asked  :  — 

u  As  an  honourable  daughter-in-law  \bride\  ? ' 

After  hesitating,  I  answered  at  last :  — 

«  Yes." 

"  What  kind  of  a  person  ?  "   Goto  asked. 

I  answered  :  — 

"  If  I  had  felt  myself  able  to  look  at  him  long  enough 
to  form  any  opinion,  I  would  not  have  put  mother  to  the 
trouble  of  going  with  me." 

"  Ane-San  [Elder  Sister]  !  "  he  exclaimed, —  "  then  what 
was  the  use  of  going  to  see  him  at  all  ?  .  .  .  But,"  he 
added,  in  a  more  pleasant  tone,  tc  let  me  wish  you  luck." 

"  Anyhow,"  I  said,  "  to-morrow  it  will  be." 

And  I  returned  home. 

Now  the  appointed  day  having  come  —  the  twenty-eighth 
day  of  the  ninth  month  —  I  had  so  much  to  do  that  I  did 
not  know  how  I  should  ever  be  able  to  get  ready.  And  as 
it  had  been  raining  for  several  days,  the  roadway  was  very 
bad,  which  made  matters  worse  for  me  —  though,  luckily, 
no  rain  fell  on  that  day.  I  had  to  buy  some  little  things  ; 
and  I  could  not  well  ask  mother  to  do  anything  for  me,  — 
much  as  I  wished  for  her  help,  —  because  her  feet  had  be 
come  very  weak  by  reason  of  her  great  age.  So  I  got  up 
very  early  and  went  out  alone,  and  did  the  best  I  could  : 
nevertheless,  it  was  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  before  I 
got  everything  ready. 

Then  I  had  to  go  to  the  hair-dresser's  to  have  my  hair 


94  A   WOMAN'S   DIARY 

dressed,  and  to  go  to  the  bath-house  —  all  of  which  took 
time.  And  when  I  came  back  to  dress,  I  found  that  no 
message  had  yet  been  received  from  Namiki-Shi ;  and  I 
began  to  feel  a  little  anxious.  Just  after  we  had  finished 
supper,  the  message  came.  I  had  scarcely  time  to  say 
good-by  to  all :  then  I  went  out,  —  leaving  my  home 
behind  forever,  —  and  walked  with  mother  to  the  house  of 
Okada-Shi. 

There  I  had  to  part  even  from  mother;  and  the  wife 
of  Okada-Shi  taking  charge  of  me,  I  accompanied  her  to 
the  house  of  Namaki-Shi  in  Funamachi. 

The  wedding  ceremony  of  the  sansan-kudo-no-sakazuki^ 
having  been  performed  without  any  difficulty,  and  the  time 
of  the  o-hiraki  ["  honourable-blossoming  "]  2  having  come 
more  quickly  than  I  had  expected,  the  guests  all  returned 
home. 

So  we  two  were  left,  for  the  first  time,  each  alone  with 
the  other  —  sitting  face  to  face :  my  heart  beat  wildly ; 3 

1  Lit.  "  thrice-three-nine-times-wine-cup. " 

2  At  a  Japanese  wedding  it  is  customary  to  avoid  the  use  of  any  words  to  which 
an  unlucky  signification  attaches,  or  of  any  words  suggesting  misfortune  in  even  an 
indirect  way.      The  word  sumu,    <cto  finish,"  or  "to  end";  the  word  kacru, 
tf  to  return,"  (suggesting  divorce),  as  well  as  many  others,  are  forbidden  at  weddings. 
Accordingly,   the  term  o-biraki  has  long   been  euphemistically  substituted  for  the 
term  oitoma  ("  honourable  leave-taking,"  i.e.  "farewell"),  in  the  popular  etiquette 
of  wedding  assemblies. 

8  "I  felt  a  tumultuous  beating  within  my  breast,"  would  perhaps  be  a  closer 
rendering  of  the  real  sense  ;  but  it  would  sound  oddly  artificial  by  comparison  with 
the  simple  Japanese  utterance  :  ' (  Ato  nl  nva  futari  sasbi-mukai  to  nari,  muni 
ucbi-saiuagi ;  sono  bazukasbisa  bisshi  ni  tsukusbi-gatasbi." 


A   WOMAN'S    DIARY  95 

and  I  felt  abashed  in  such  a  way  as  could  not  be  expressed 
by  means  of  ink  and  paper. 

Indeed,  what  I  felt  can  be  imagined  only  by  one  who 
remembers  leaving  her  parents'  home  for  the  first  time,  to 
become  a  bride,  —  a  daughter-in-law  in  a  strange  house. 

Afterward,  at  the  hour  of  meals,  I  felt  very  much  dis 
tressed  [embarrassed].  .  .  . 

Two  or  three  days  later,  the  father  of  my  husband's  for 
mer  wife  \who  was  dead]  visited  me,  and  said  :  — 

"  Namiki-Shi  is  really  a  good  man,  —  a  moral,  steady 
man ;  but  as  he  is  also  very  particular  about  small  matters 
and  inclined  to  find  fault,  you  had  better  always  be  careful 
to  try  to  please  him." 

Now  as  I  had  been  carefully  watching  my  husband's 
ways  from  the  beginning,  I  knew  that  he  was  really  a  very 
strict  man,  and  I  resolved  so  to  conduct  myself  in  all  mat 
ters  as  never  to  cross  his  will. 

The  fifth  day  of  the  tenth  month  was  the  day  for  our 
satogaeri}  and  for  the  first  time  we  went  out  together,  call 
ing  at  Goto's  on  the  way.  After  we  left  Goto's,  the 
weather  suddenly  became  bad,  and  it  began  to  rain.  Then 
we  borrowed  a  paper  umbrella,  which  we  used  as  an  ai- 
gasa  2 ;  and  though  I  was  very  uneasy  lest  any  of  my  former 

1  From  sate,  "  the  parental  home,*'  and  kaeri,  "  to  return. "     The  first  visit  of  a 
bride  to  her  parents,  after  marriage,  is  thus  called. 

2  ^igasa,  a  fantastic  term  compounded  from  the  verb  au,  "to  accord,"  "to 
harmonize,"  and  the  noun  kasat  "an  umbrella."      It  signifies  one  umbrella  used 
by  two  persons  —  especially  lovers  :  an  umbrella-of-loving-accord.      To  understand 
the  wife's  anxiety  about  being  seen  walking  with  her  husband  under  the  borrowed 


9°  A    WOMAN'S    DIARY 

I  neighbours  should  see  us  walking  thus  together,  we  luckily 
reached  my  parents'  house,  and  made  our  visit  of  duty, 
without  any  trouble  at  all.  While  we  were  in  the  house, 
the  rain  fortunately  stopped. 

On  the  ninth  day  of  the  same  month  I  went  with  him 
to  the  theatre  for  the  first  time.  We  visited  the  Engiza 
at  Akasaka,  and  saw  a  performance  by  the  Yamaguchi 
company. 

On  the  eighth  day  of  the  eleventh  month,  we  made  a 
visit  to  Asakusa-temple,1  and  also  went  to  the  [Shinto 
temple  of  the]  O-Tori-Sama. 

—  During  this  last  month  of  the  year  I  made  new  spring 
robes  for  my  husband  and  myself:  then  I  learned  for  the 
first  time  how  pleasant  such  work  was,  and  I  felt  very 
happy. 

On  the  twenty-fifth  day  we  visited  the  temple  of  Ten- 
jin-Sama,2  and  walked  about  the  grounds  there. 

On  the  eleventh  day  of  the  first  month  of  the  twenty- 
ninth  year  [1896],  called  at  Okada's. 

On  the  twelfth  day  we  paid  a  visit  to  Goto's,  and  had 
a  pleasant  time  there. 

umbrella,  the  reader  must  know  that  it  is  not  yet  considered  decorous  for  wife 
and  husband  even  to  walk  side  by  side  in  public.  A  newly  wedded  pair,  using  a 
single  umbrella  in  this  way,  would  be  particularly  liable  to  have  jests  made  at  their 
expense — jests  that  might  prove  trying  to  the  nerves  of  a  timid  bride. 

1  She  means  the  great   Buddhist   temple  of  Kwannon,  —  the  most  popular,  and 
perhaps  the  most  famous,  Buddhist  temple  in  Tokyo. 

2  In  the  Okubo  quarter.      The  shrine  is  shadowed  by  a  fine  grove  of  trees. 


A   WOMAN'S    DIARY  97 

On  the  ninth  day  of  the  second  month  we  went  to  the 
Mizaki  theatre  to  see  the  play  Imos'e-Tama.  On  our  way 
to  the  theatre  we  met  Goto-Shi  unexpectedly ;  and  he 
went  with  us.  But  unluckily  it  began  to  rain  as  we  were 
returning  home,  and  we  found  the  roads  very  muddy. 

On  the  twenty-second  day  of  the  same  month  [we  had 
our]  photograph  taken  at  Amano's. 

On  the  twenty-fifth  day  of  the  third  month  we  went  to 
the  Haruki  theatre,  and  saw  the  play  Uguisuzuka. 

—  During  the  month  it  was  agreed  that  all  of  us  \kln- 
dred,  friends,  and  parents]  should  make  up  a  party,  and 
enjoy  our  hanami *  together ;  but  this  could  not  be 
managed. 

On  the  tenth  day  of  the  fourth  month,  at  nine  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  we  two  went  out  for  a  walk.  We  first 
visited  the  Shokonsha  [Shinto  shrine]  at  Kudan  :  thence  we 
walked  to  Uyeno  [park]  ;  and  from  there  we  went  to 
Asakusa,  and  visited  the  Kwannon  temple ;  and  we  also 
prayed  at  the  Monzeki  [Higashi  Hongwanjt] .  Thence  we 
had  intended  to  go  round  to  Asakusa-Okuyama ;  but  we 
thought  that  it  would  be  better  to  have  dinner  first  —  so 
we  went  to  an  eating-house.  While  we  were  dining,  we 
heard  such  a  noise  of  shouting  and  screaming  that  we 
thought  there  was  a  great  quarrel  outside.  But  the  trouble 

1  That  is  to  say,  "  It  was  agreed  that  we  should  all  go  together  to  see  the 
flowers."  The  word  hanami  ("flower-seeing")  might  be  given  to  any  of  the 
numerous  flower-festivals  of  the  year,  according  to  circumstances  ;  but  it  here  re 
fers  to  the  season  of  cherry  blossoms.  Throughout  this  diary  the  dates  are  those 
of  the  old  lunar  calendar. 

H 


98  A   WOMAN'S   DIARY 

was  really  caused  by  a  fire  in  one  of  the  mis'emono  ["  shows  "] . 
The  fire  spread  quickly,  even  while  we  were  looking  at  it ; 
and  nearly  all  the  show-buildings  in  that  street  were  burnt 
up.  ...  We  left  the  eating-house  soon  after,  and  walked 
about  the  Asakusa  grounds,  looking  at  things. 

[Here  follows,  in  the  original  Ms.,  the  text  of  a 
little  poem,  composed  by  the  writer  herself:  — ] 

Imado  no  watashi  nite, 
Aimita  koto  mo  naki  hito  ni, 
Fushigi  ni   Mimeguri-Inari, 
Kaku  mo  fufu  ni  naru  nomika. 
Hajime  no  omoi  ni  hikikaete, 
Itsushika-kokoro  mo  Sumidagawa. 
Tsugai  hanarenu  miyakodori, 
Hito  mo  urayameba  wagami  mo  mata, 
Sakimidaretaru  dote  no  hana  yori  mo, 
Hana  ni  mo  mashita  sono  hito  to 
Shirahige-Yashiro  ni  naru  made  mo. 
Soitogetashi  to  inorinenji ! 

\Freely  translated^ 

Having  been  taken  across  the  Imado-Ferry,  I  strangely  met 
at  [the  temple  of~\  Mimeguri-Inari  with  a  person  whom  I  bad 

1  A  literal  rendering  is  almost  impossible.  There  is  a  ferry,  called  the  Ferry  of 
Imado,  over  the  Sumidagawa ;  but  the  reference  here  is  really  neither  to  the  ferry 
nor  to  the  ferryman,  but  to  the  nakZdo,  or  match-maker,  who  arranged  for  the 


A   WOMAN'S    DIARY  99 

never  seen  before.  Because  of  this  meeting  our  relation  is  now 
even  more  than  the  relation  of  husband  and  wife.  And  my 
first  anxious  doubt,  u  For  bow  long —  ?"  having  passed  away, 
my  mind  has  become  ^clear^  as  the  Sumida  River.  Indeed  we 
are  now  like  a  pair  of  Miyako-birds  \always  together^  ;  and  1 
even  think  that  I  deserve  to  be  envied.  [To  see  the  flowers  we 
went  out ;  bui\  more  than  the  pleasure  of  viewing  a  whole 
shore  in  blossom  is  the  pleasure  that  I  now  desire,  —  always  to 
dwell  with  this  person,  dearer  to  me  than  any  flower,  until  we 
enter  the  Shirahig'e-Tashiro.  That  we  may  so  remain  together, 
I  supplicate  the  Gods! 

.  .  .  Then  we  crossed  the  Azuma  bridge  on  our  home 
ward  way ;  and  we  went  by  steamer  to  the  kaicho  [festival] 
of  the  temple  of  the  Soga-Kyodai,1  and  prayed  that  love 
and  concord  should  continue  always  between  ourselves  and 
our  brothers  and  sisters.  It  was  after  seven  o'clock  that 
evening  when  we  got  home. 

marriage.  Mimeguri-Inari  is  the  popular  name  of  a  famous  temple  of  the  God 
of  Rice,  in  Mukojima ;  but  there  is  an  untranslatable  play  here  upon  the  name, 
suggesting  a  lovers'  meeting.  The  reference  to  the  Sumidagawa  also  contains  a 
play  upon  the  syllables  sumi, — the  verb  "  sumi  "  signifying  "to  be  clear." 
Sbirahige-Tasbiro  ("White-Hair  Temple")  is  the  name  of  a  real  and  very 
celebrated  Shinto  shrine  in  the  city  ;  but  the  name  is  here  used  chiefly  to  express 
the  hope  that  the  union  may  last  into  the  period  of  hoary  age.  Besides  these  sug 
gestions,  we  may  suppose  that  the  poem  contains  allusions  to  the  actual  journey 
made,  — over  the  Sumidagawa  by  ferry,  and  thence  to  the  various  temples  named. 
From  old  time,  poems  of  like  meaning  have  been  made  about  these  places ;  but  the 
lines  above  given  are  certainly  original,  with  the  obvious  exception  of  a  few  phrases 
which  have  become  current  coin  in  popular  poetry. 

1  The  Soga  Brothers  were  famous  heroes  of  the  twelfth  century.  The  word 
kaicbo  signifies  the  religious  festival  during  which  the  principal  image  of  a  temple  is 
exposed  to  view. 


ioo  A   WOMAN'S    DIARY 

—  On    the    twenty-fifth    day   of   the    same   month  we 
went  to  the  Rokumono-no-Yose.1 

****** 
On  the  second  day  of  the  fifth  month  we  visited    [the 

gardens  at]  Okubo  to  see  the  azaleas  in  blossom. 

On  the  sixth  day  of  the  same  month  we  went  to  see  a 

display  of  fireworks  at  the  Shokonsha. 

—  So  far  we  had   never  had  any  words  between  us  nor 
any  disagreement ; 2  and  I  had  ceased  to  feel  bashful  when 
we  went   out  visiting   or   sight-seeing.     Now  each  of  us 
seemed  to  think  only  of  how  to  please  the  other;  and  I 
felt  sure  that  nothing  would  ever  separate  us.   ...  May 
our  relation  always  be  thus  happy  ! 

The  eighteenth  day  of  the  sixth  month,  being  the  festi 
val  of  the  Suga-jinja,3  we  were  invited  to  my  father's  house. 
But  as  the  hair-dresser  did  not  come  to  dress  my  hair  at 
the  proper  time,  I  was  much  annoyed.  However,  I  went 
with  O-Tori-San  [a  younger  sister]  to  father's.  Presently 
O-Ko-San  [a  married  sister]  also  came  ;  —  and  we  had  a 
pleasant  time.  In  the  evening  Goto-Shi  [husband  of  O-Ko] 
joined  us ;  and,  last  of  all,  came  my  husband,  for  whom  I 
had  been  waiting  with  anxious  impatience.  And  there  was 
one  thing  that  made  me  very  glad.  Often  when  he  and  I 
were  to  go  out  together,  I  had  proposed  that  we  should  put 

1  Name  of  a  public  hall  at  which  various  kinds  of  entertainments  are  given, 
more  especially  recitations  by  professional  story-tellers. 

2  Lit.  "there  never  yet  having  been  any  waves  nor  even  wind  between  us." 

8  The  Shinto  parish-temple,  or  more  correctly,  district-temple  of  the  Yotsuya 
quarter.  Each  quarter,  or  district,  of  the  city  has  its  tutelar  divinity,  or  Ujigami. 
Suga-jinja  is  the  Ujigami-temple  of  Yotsuya. 


A   WOMAN'S    DIARY  101 

on  the  new  spring  robes  which  I  had  made ;  but  he  had  as 
often  refused,  —  preferring  to  wear  his  old  kimono.  Now, 
however,  he  wore  the  new  one,  —  having  felt  obliged  to 
put  it  on  because  of  father's  invitation.  .  .  .  All  of  us 
being  thus  happily  assembled,  the  party  became  more  and 
more  enjoyable ;  and  when  we  had  at  last  to  say  good-by, 
we  only  regretted  the  shortness  of  the  summer  night. 

These  are  the  poems  which  we  composed  that  evening  :  — 

Futa-fufu 
Sorote  iwo, 

Ujigami  no 
Matsuri  mo  ky5  wa 
Nigiwai  ni  keri. 

—  By  Namiki  (the  husband}. 

Two  wedded  couples  having  gone  together  to  worship  at  the 
temple,  the  parish-festival  to-day  has  been  merrier  than  ever 

before. 

Ujigami  no 

Matsuri  medetashi 

Futa-fufu.    -  —  Also  by  the  husband. 

Fortunate  Indeed  for  two  married  couples  has  been  the  parish- 
temple  festival ! 

Ikutose  mo 

Nigiyaka  narishi, 

Ujigami  no, 
Matsuri  ni  soro, 
Kyo   no  ureshisa.     —  By  the  wife. 


102  A   WOMAN'S    DIARY 

Though  for  ever  so  many  years  it  has  always  been  a  joyous 
occasion,  the  festival  of  our  parish-temple  to-day  is  more  pleasant 
than  ever  before,  because  of  our  being  thus  happily  assembled 
together. 

Matsuri  tote, 
Ikka  atsumaru, 

Tanoshimi  wa ! 
Geni  Ujigami  no 
Megumi  narikeri. 

—  By  the  wife. 

To-day  being  a  day  of  festival,  and  all  of  us  meeting  together, 
—  what  a  delight !  Surely  by  the  favour  of  the  tutelar  God 
[  Ujigami]  this  has  come  to  pass. 

Futa-fufa 
Sorote  kyo  no 

Shitashimi  mo, 
Kami  no  megumi  zo 
Medeta  kari-keri.     — By  the  wife. 

Two  wedded  pairs  being  to-day  united  in  such  friendship  as 
this,  —  certainly  it  has  happened  only  through  the  favour  of  the 
Gods! 

Ujigami  no 

Megumi  mo  fukaki 

Fufu-zure.  —  By  the  wife. 

Deep  indeed  is  the  favour  of  the  tutelar  God  to  the  two  mar* 
ried  couples. 


A   WOMAN'S    DIARY  103 

Matsuri  tote, 
Tsui  ni  shitateshi 

lyo-gasuri, 
Kyo  tanoshimi  ni 

Kiru  to  omoeba. 

—  By  the  wife. 

This  day  being  a  day  of  festival,  we  decided  to  put  on,  for 
the  joyful  meeting,  the  robes  of  lyogasuri^  that  had  been  made 
alike. 

Omoikya ! 

Hakarazu  soro 

Futa-fufu ; 
Nani  ni  tatoen 
Kyo  no  kichi-jitsu. 

—  By  Goto  (the  brother-in-law^. 

How  could  we  have  thought  it !  Here  unexpectedly  the  two 
married  couples  meet  together.  What  can  compare  with  the 
good  fortune  of  this  day  ? 

Matsuri  tote 
Hajimete  soro 

Futa-fufu, 
Nochi  no  kaeri  zo 
Ima  wa  kanashiki. 

—  By  O-K'Oy  the  married  sister. 

1  lyogasuri  is  the  name  given  to  a  kind  of  dark-blue  cotton-cloth,  with  a  sprin 
kling  of  white  in  small  patterns,  manufactured  at  lyo,  in  Shikoku. 


104  A   WOMAN'S    DIARY 

This  day  being  a  day  of  festival,  here  for  the  first  time  two 
wedded  pairs  have  met.  Already  I  find  myself  sorrowing  at  the 
thought  that  we  must  separate  again. 

Furu-sato  no 
Matsuri  ni  sor5 

Futa-fufu : 
Katar5  ma  sae 

Natsu  mo  mijika  yo ! 

—  By  0-Ko. 

At  the  old  parental  home,  two  married  couples  have  met 
together  in  holiday  celebration.  Alas !  that  the  time  of  our 
happy  converse  should  be  only  one  short  summer  night ! 

On  the  fifth  day  of  the  seventh  month,  went  to  the 
Kanazawa-tei,1  where  Harimadayu  was  then  reciting ;  and 
we  heard  him  recite  thejoruri  called  Sanjusangendo. 

On  the  first  day  of  the  eighth  month  we  went  to  the 
[Buddhist]  temple  of  Asakusa  [Kwannon]  to  pray, — 
that  day  being  the  first  anniversary  [jjj£54t]  of  the  death 
of  my  husband's  former  wife.  Afterward  we  went  to  an 
eel-house,  near  the  Azuma  bridge,  for  dinner;  and  while 
we  were  there — just  about  the  hour  of  noon  —  an  earth 
quake  took  place.  Being  close  to  the  river,  the  house 
rocked  very  much ;  and  I  was  greatly  frightened. 

1The  Kanazawa-tei  is  a  public  hall  in  the  Yotsuya  quarter.  Harimadayu  is 
the  professional  name  of  a  celebrated  chanter  of  the  dramatic  recitations  called  joruri 
and  gidayu,  —  in  which  the  reciter,  or  chanter,  mimes  the  voices  and  action  of 
many  different  characters. 


A   WOMAN'S    DIARY  105 

—  Remembering  that  when  we  went  to  Asakusa  before, 
in  the  time  of  cherry  blossoms,  we  had  seen  a  big  fire,  this 
earthquake  made  me  feel  anxious;  —  I  wondered  whether 
lightning  would  come  next.1 

About  two  o'clock  we  left  the  eating-house,  and  went  to 
the  Asakusa  park.  From  there  we  went  by  street-car  to 
Kanda  ;  and  we  stopped  awhile  at  a  cool  place  in  Kanda, 
to  rest  ourselves.  On  our  way  home  we  called  at  father's, 
and  it  was  after  nine  o'clock  when  we  got  back. 

The  fifteenth  day  of  the  same  month  was  the  festival  of 
the  Hachiman-jinja2;  and  Goto,  my  sister,  and  the  younger 
sister  of  Goto  came  to  the  house.  I  had  hoped  that  we 
could  all  go  to  the  temple  together ;  but  that  morning  my 
husband  had  taken  a  little  too  much  wine,  —  so  we  had  to 
go  without  him.  After  worshipping  at  the  temple,  we 
went  to  Goto's  house ;  and  I  stopped  there  awhile  before 
returning  home. 

In  the  ninth  month,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Higan  3  fes 
tival,  I  went  alone  to  the  [Buddhist]  temple  to  pray. 

On  the  twenty-first  day  of  the  tenth  month,  O-Taka- 
San  [probably  a  relative]  came  from  Shidzuoka.  I  wanted 

1  She  alludes  to  a  popular  saying  of  Buddhist  origin  :  —  Jisbin,  kiuaji,  kaminari, 
misoka,  kikin,  yamai  no  naki  kuni  e  yuku  ("Let  us  go  to  the  Land  where  there 
is  neither  earthquake,  nor  fire,   nor  lightning,   nor  any  last  day  of  the  month,  nor 
famine,  nor  sickness"). 

2  Ujigami  of  the  Ushigome  district. 

3  Festival  of  the  "  Further  Shore"  (that  is  to  sajr,  Paradise).      There  are  two 
great  Buddhist  festivals  thus    called,  —  the  first  representing  a  period  of  seven  days 
during  the  spring  equinox  j  the  second,  a  period  of  seven  days  during  the  autumnal 
equinox. 


io6  A   WOMAN'S   DIARY 

to  take  her  to  the  theatre  the  next  day ;  but  she  was 
obliged  to  leave  Tokyo  early  in  the  morning.  However, 
my  husband  and  I  went  to  the  Ryusei  theatre  on  the  fol 
lowing  evening;  and  we  saw  the  play  called  Matsumae 
Bidan  Teicku-Kagami"  l 

On  the  twenty-second  day  of  the  sixth  month  I  began 
to  sew  a  kimono  which  father  had  asked  me  to  make  for 
him ;  but  I  felt  ill,  and  could  not  do  much.  However,  I 
was  able  to  finish  the  work  on  the  first  day  of  the  new 
year  [1897]. 

.  .  .  Now  we  were  very  happy  because  of  the  child 
that  was  to  be  born.  And  I  thought  how  proud  and  glad 
my  parents  would  be  at  having  a  grandchild  for  the  first 

time. 

****** 

On  the  tenth  day  of  the  fifth  month  I  went  out  with 
mother  to  worship  Shiogama-Sama,2  and  also  to  visit 
Sengakuji.  There  we  saw  the  tombs  of  the  Shijin-shichi 
Shi  [Forty-seven  Ronin],  and  many  relics  of  their  history. 
We  returned  by  railroad,  taking  the  train  from  Shinagawa 
to  Shinjiku.  At  Shiocho-Sanchome  I  parted  from  mother, 
and  I  got  home  by  six  o'clock. 

****** 

On  the  eighth  day  of  the  sixth  month,  at  four  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  a  boy  was  born.  Both  mother  and  child 

lrThis  drama  is  founded  upon  the  history  of  a  famous  rice  merchant  named 
Matsumaeya  Gorobei. 

2  Shiogama-Daimyojin,  a  Shinto  deity,  to  whom  women  pray  for  easy  delivery 
[in  child-birth.  Shrines  of  this  divinity  may  be  found  in  almost  every  province  of 
Japan. 


A   WOMAN'S   DIARY  107 

appeared  to  be  as  well  as  could  be  wished  ;  and  the  child 
much  resembled  my  husband ;  and  its  eyes  were  large  and 
black.  .  .  .  But  I  must  say  that  it  was  a  very  small 
child;  for,  though  it  ought  to  have  been  born  in  the 
eighth  month,  it  was  born  indeed  in  the  sixth.  ...  At 
seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  the  same  day,  when  the 
time  came  to  give  the  child  some  medicine,  we  saw,  by 
the  light  of  the  lamp,  that  he  was  looking  all  about,  with 
his  big  eyes  wide  open.  During  that  night  the  child  slept 
in  my  mother's  bosom.  As  we  had  been  told  that  he  must 
be  kept  very  warm,  because  he  was  only  a  seven-months' 
child,  it  was  decided  that  he  should  be  kept  in  the  bosom 
by  day  as  well  as  by  night. 

Next  day  —  the  ninth  day  of  the  sixth  month  —  at  half- 
past  six  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  he  suddenly  died.  .  .  . 

—  "  Brief  is  the  time  of  pleasure,  and  quickly  turns  to  pain ; 
and  whatsoever  is  born  must  necessarily  die  "  * ;  —  that,  indeed, 

is  a  true  saying  about  this  world, 
t 

Only  for  one  day  to  be  called  a  mother !  —  to  have  a 
child  born  only  to  see  it  die  !  ...  Surely,  I  thought,  if 
a  child  must  die  within  two  days  after  birth,  it  were  better 
that  it  should  never  be  born. 

From  the  twelfth  to  the  sixth  month  I  had  been  so  ill ! 
—  then  at  last  I  had  obtained  some  ease,  and  joy  at  the 
birth  of  a  son  ;  and  I  had  received  so  many  congratulations 
about  my  good  fortune  ;  —  and,  nevertheless,  he  was  dead ! 
.  .  .  Indeed,  I  suffered  great  grief. 

1  Ureshiki  ma  wa  wa/uka  nite,  mata  kanashimi  to  henzuru ;  umareru  mono 
wa  kanarazu  shizu.  —  A  Buddhist  text  that  has  become  a  Japanese  proverb. 


io8  A   WOMAN'S    DIARY 

On  the  tenth  day  of  the  sixth  month  the  funeral  took 
place,  at  the  temple  called  Senpukuji,  in  Okubo,  and  a 
small  tomb  was  erected. 

The  poems  composed  at  that  time1  were  the  follow 
ing: — 

Omoikya  ! 
Mi  ni  sae  kaenu 

Nadeshiko  ni, 
Wakareshi   sode  no 
Tsuyu  no  tamoto  wo ! 

If  I  could  only  have  known  !  Ah,  this  parting  with  the 
flower?  for  which  I  would  so  gladly  have  given  my  own  life^ 
has  left  my  sleeves  wet  with  the  dew  ! 

Samidare  ya  ! 
Shimerigachi  naru 
Sode  no  tamoto  wo. 

Oh  !  the  month  of  rain  !  3  All  things  become  damp ;  —  the 
ends  of  my  sleeves  are  wet. 


1  Composed  by  the  bereaved  mother  herself,  as  a  discipline  against  grief. 

2  Nadcsbiko  literally  means  a  pink  j  but  in  poetry  the  word  is  commonly  used 
in  the  meaning  of  "baby." 

8  Samidare  is  the  name  given  to  the  old  fifth  month,  or,  more  strictly  speaking, 
to  a  rainy  period  occurring  in  that  month.  The  verses  are,  of  course,  allusive,  and 
their  real  meaning  might  be  rendered  thus  :  "  Oh  !  the  season  of  grief !  All  things 
now  seem  sad  :  the  sleeves  of  my  robe  are  moist  with  my  tears  ! ' ' 


A   WOMAN'S    DIARY  109 

Some  little  time  afterward,  people  told  me  that  if  I 
planted  the  sotoba1  pside  down,  another  misfortune  of 
this  kind  would  not  come  to  pass.  I  had  a  great  many 
sorrowful  doubts  about  doing  such  a  thing ;  but  at  last,  on 
the  ninth  day  of  the  eighth  month,  I  had  the  sotoba  re 
versed.  .  .  . 

On  the  eighth  day  of  the  ninth  month  we  went  to  the 
Akasaka  theatre. 

On  the  eighteenth  day  of  the  tenth  month  I  went  by 
myself  to  the  Haruki  theatre  in  Kongo,  to  see  the  play  of 
Okubo  Hikozaemon?  There,  having  carelessly  lost  my 
sandal-ticket  \gesoku-f uda~\,  I  had  to  remain  until  after 
everybody  else  had  left.  Then  I  was  at  last  able  to  get 
my  sandals,  and  to  go  home ;  but  the  night  was  so  black 
that  I  felt  very  lonesome  on  the  way. 

On  the  day  of  the  Sekku?  in  the  first  month  [1898],  I 

1  The  sotoba  is  a  tall  wooden  lath,  inscribed  with  Buddhist  texts,  and  planted 
above  a  grave.     For  a  full  account  of  the  sotoba,  see  the  article  entitled  "  The  Lit 
erature  of  the  Dead,"  in  my  Exotics  and  Retrospectives,  p.  102.      I  am  not  able  to 
give  any  account  or  explanation  of  the  curious  superstition  here  referred  to  ;  but  it  is 
probably  of  the  same  class  with  the  strange  custom  recorded  in  my  Gleanings  in 
Buddha-Fields,  p.  12,6. 

2  It  would  be  unfair  to  suppose  that  this  visit  to  the  theatre  was  made  only  for 
pleasure ;  it  was  made  rather  in  the  hope  of  forgetting  pain,  and  probably  by  order 
of  the  husband. 

Okubo  Hikozaemon  was  the  favourite  minister  and  adviser  of  the  Shogun  lyem- 
itsu.  Numberless  stories  of  his  sagacity  and  kindness  are  recorded  in  popular  lit 
erature  ;  and  in  many  dramas  the  notable  incidents  of  his  official  career  are  still 
represented. 

8  There  are  five  holidays  thus  named  in  every  year.  These  go-sekku  are  usually 
called,  Jinjitsu  (the  yth  of  the  ist  month),  Joki  (the  3d  of  the  3d  month), 


no  A   WOMAN'S   DIARY 

was  talking  with  Hori's  aunt  and  the  wife  of  our  friend 
Uchimi,  when  I  suddenly  felt  a  violent  pain  in  my  breast, 
and,  being  frightened,  I  tried  to  reach  a  talisman  ^p-mamori\ 
of  SuitengQ,1  which  was  lying  upon  the  wardrobe.  But  in 
the  same  moment  I  fell  senseless.  Under  kind  treatment 
I  soon  came  to  myself  again ;  but  I  was  ill  for  a  long  time 

after. 

*  *  *  #  *  * 

The  tenth  day  of  the  fourth  month  being  the  holiday 
Sanjiu-nen-Saif  we  arranged  to  meet  at  father's.  I  was 
to  go  there  first  with  Jiunosuke  \_perhaps  a  relative] ,  and 
there  wait  for  my  husband,  who  had  to  go  to  the  office 
that  morning  for  a  little  while.  He  met  us  at  father's 
house  about  half-past  eight :  then  the  three  of  us  went  out 
together  to  look  at  the  streets.  We  passed  through  Koji- 
machi  to  Nakatamachi,  and  went  by  way  of  the  Sakurada- 
Mon  to  the  Hibiya-Metsuke,  and  thence  from  Ginzadori 
by  way  of  the  Megane-Bashi  to  Uyeno.  After  looking  at 
things  there,  we  again  went  to  the  Megane-bashi;  but  then 
I  felt  so  tired  that  I  proposed  to  return,  and  my  husband 
agreed,  as  he  also  was  very  tired.  But  Jiunosuke  said : 
u  As  I  do  not  want  to  miss  this  chance  to  see  the  Daimyo- 
procession,3  I  must  go  on  to  Ginza."  So  there  we  said 

Tango  (the  5th  of  the  5th  month),  Tanabata  (the  yth  of  the  yth  month),  and 
Cboyo  (the  9th  of  the  gth  month). 

1  A  divinity  half-Buddhist,  half-Shinto,  in  origin,  but  now  popularly  considered 
Shinto.     This  god  is  especially  worshipped  as  a  healer,  and  a  protector  against  sick 
ness.      His  principal  temple  in  Tokyo  is  in  the  Nihonbashi  district. 

2  A  festival  in  commemoration  of  the  thirtieth  anniversary  of  the  establishment 
of  Tokyo  as  the  Imperial  capital,  instead  of  Kyoto. 

3  Daimyo-no-gyoretsu.      On  the  festival  mentioned  there  was  a  pageant  repre 
senting  feudal  princes  travelling  in  state,  accompanied  by  their  retainers  and  servants. 


A  WOMAN'S   DIARY  in 

good-by  to  him,  and  we  went  to  a  little  eating-house  [tem- 
pura-ya],  where  we  were  served  with  fried  fish;  and,  as  luck 
would  have  it,  we  got  a  good  chance  to  see  the  Daimyo- 
procession  from  that  very  house.  We  did  not  get  back 
home  that  evening  until  half-past  six  o'clock. 

From  the  middle  of  the  fourth  month  I  had  much  sor 
row  on  account  of  a  matter  relating  to  my  sister  Tori  [the 
matter  is  not  mentioned]. 

*  *  *  *  *  * 

On  the  nineteenth  day  of  the  eighth  month  of  the  thirty- 
first  year  of  Meiji  [1898]  my  second  child  was  born, 
almost  painlessly,  —  a  girl ;  and  we  named  her  Hatsu. 

We  invited  to  the  sbichiya l  all  those  who  had  helped  us 
at  the  time  of  the  child's  birth. 

—  Mother  afterwards  remained  with  me  for  a  couple  of 
days ;  but  she  was  then  obliged  to  leave  me,  because  my 
sister  Ko  was  suffering  from  severe  pains  in  the  chest. 
Fortunately  my  husband  had  his  regular  vacation  about  the 
same  time;  and  he  helped  me  all  he  could,  —  even  in  re 
gard  to  washing  and  other  matters ;  but  I  was  often  greatly 
troubled  because  I  had  no  woman  with  me.  .  .  . 

When  my  husband's  vacation  was  over,  mother  came 
often,  but  only  while  my  husband  was  away.  The  twenty- 
one  days  [the  period  of  danger]  thus  passed ;  but  mother 
and  child  continued  well. 


The  real  armour,  costumes,  and  weapons  of  the  period  before  Meiji  were  effectively 
displayed  on  this  occasion. 

1  A  congratulatory  feast,  held  on  the  evening  of  the  seventh  day  after  the  birth 
of  a  child.      Relatives  and  friends  invited  usually  make  small  presents  to  the  baby 


> 
irth/    , 

'•J     I 


ii2  A    WOMAN'S    DIARY 

—  Up  to  the  time  of  one  hundred  days  after  my  daugh 
ter's  birth,  I  was  constantly  anxious  about  her,  because  she 
often  seemed  to  have  a  difficulty  in  breathing.  But  that 
passed  off  at  last,  and  she  appeared  to  be  getting  strong. 

Still,  we  were  unhappy  about  one  matter,  —  a  deformity  : 
Hatsu  had  been  born  with  a  double  thumb  on  one  hand. 
For  a  long  time  we  could  not  make  up  our  minds  to  take 
her  to  a  hospital,  in  order  to  have  an  operation  performed. 
But  at  last  a  woman  living  near  our  house  told  us  of  a  very 
skilful  surgeon  in  [the  quarter  of]  Shinjiku ;  and  we  decided 
to  go  to  him.  My  husband  held  the  child  on  his  lap  dur 
ing  the  operation.  I  could  not  bear  to  see  the  operation ; 
and  I  waited  in  the  next  room,  my  heart  full  of  pain  and 
fear,  wondering  how  the  matter  would  end.  But  [when 
all  was  over]  the  little  one  did  not  appear  to  suffer  any 
pain ;  and  she  took  the  breast  as  usual  a  few  minutes  after. 
So  the  matter  ended  more  fortunately  than  I  had  thought 
possible. 

At  home  she  continued  to  take  her  milk  as  before,  and 
seemed  as  if  nothing  had  been  done  to  her  little  body.  But 
as  she  was  so  very  young  we  were  afraid  that  the  operation 
might  in  some  way  cause  her  to  be  sick.  By  way  of  pre 
caution,  I  went  with  her  to  the  hospital  every  day  for  about 
three  weeks  ;  but  she  showed  no  sign  of  sickness. 

On  the  third  day  of  the  third  month  of  the  thirty-second 
year  [1899],  on  tne  occasion  of  the  hatsu-sekku^  we  re 
ceived  presents  of  Dairi  and  of  bina^  both  from  father's 
house  and  from  Goto's,  —  also  the  customary  gifts  of  con- 

1  The  first  annual  Festival  of  Girls  is  thus  called. 


A   WOMAN'S    DIARY  113 

gratulation  :  a  tansu  [chest  of  drawers] ,  a  kyodai  [mirror- 
stand],  and  a  baribako  [work-box:  ///.  "needle-box"].1 
We  ourselves  on  the  same  occasion  bought  for  her  a 
ckadai  [teacup  stand],  a  zen  [lacquered  tray],  and  some 
other  little  things.  Both  Goto  and  Jiunosuke  came  to  see 
us  on  that  day ;  and  we  had  a  very  happy  gathering. 

On  the  third  day  of  the  fourth  month  we  visited  the 
temple  Ana-Hachiman  [Shinto  shrine  in  the  district  of 
Was'edd\  to  pray  for  the  child's  health.  .  .  . 

On  the  twenty-ninth  day  of  the  fourth  month  Hatsu 
appeared  to  be  unwell :  so  I  wanted  to  have  her  examined 
by  a  doctor. 

A  doctor  promised  to  come  the  same  morning,  but  he 
did  not  come,  and  I  waited  for  him  in  vain  all  that  day. 
Next  day  again  I  waited,  but  he  did  riot  come.  Toward 
evening  Hatsu  became  worse,  and  seemed  to  be  suffering 
great  pain  in  her  breast,  and  I  resolved  to  take  her  to  a 
doctor  early  next  morning.  All  through  that  night  I  was 
very  uneasy  about  her,  but  at  daybreak  she  seemed  to  be 
better.  So  I  went  out  alone,  taking  her  on  my  back,  and 
walked  to  the  office  of  a  doctor  in  Akasaka.  But  when  I 
asked  to  have  the  child  examined,  I  was  told  that  I  must 
wait,  as  it  was  not  yet  the  regular  time  for  seeing  patients. 
While  I  was  waiting,  the  child  began  to  cry  worse  than 
ever  before  \  she  would  not  take  the  breast,  and  I  could  do 
nothing  to  soothe  her,  either  by  walking  or  resting,  so  that 
I  was  greatly  troubled.  At  last  the  doctor  came,  and  began 

1  All  the  objects  here  mentioned  are  toys  —  toys  appropriate  to  the  occasion. 
The  Dairi  are  old-fashioned  toy-figures,  representing  an  emperor  and  empress  in 
ancient  costume.  Hina  are  dolls. 


ii4  A   WOMAN'S   DIARY 

to  examine  her  ;  and  in  the  same  moment  I  noticed  that 
her  crying  grew  feebler,  and  that  her  lips  were  becoming 
paler  and  paler.  Then,  as  I  could  not  remain  silent,  see 
ing  her  thus,  I  had  to  ask,  "  How  is  her  condition  ?  " 
"  She  cannot  live  until  evening,"  he  answered*  u  But 
could  you  not  give  her  medicine  ?  "  I  asked.  "  If  she 
could  drink  it,"  he  replied. 

I  wanted  to  go  back  home  at  once,  and  send  word  to 
my  husband  and  to  my  father's  house  ;  but  the  shock  had 
been  too  much  for  me  —  all  my  strength  suddenly  left 
me.  Fortunately  a  kind  old  woman  came  to  my  aid,  and 
carried  my  umbrella  and  other  things,  and  helped  me  to 
get  into  a  jinrikisha,  so  that  I  was  able  to  return  home  by 
jinrikisha.  Then  I  sent  a  man  to  tell  my  husband  and 
my  father.  Mita's  wife  came  to  help  me  ;  and  with  her 
assistance  everything  possible  was  done  to  help  the  child. 
.  .  .  Still  my  husband  did  not  come  back.  But  all  our 
pain  and  trouble  was  in  vain. 

So,  on  the  second  day  of  the  fifth  month  of  the  thirty- 
second  year,  my  child  set  out  on  her  journey  to  the  Juman- 
^  —  never  to  return  to  this  world. 


And  we,  her  father  and  mother,  were  yet  living  —  though 
we  had  caused  her  death  by  neglecting  to  have  her  treated 
by  a  skilled  doctor  !  This  thought  made  us  both  sorrow 
greatly  ;  and  we  often  reproached  ourselves  in  vain. 

But  the  day  after  her  death  the  doctor  said  to  us  :  "  Even 
if  that  disease  had  been  treated  from  the  beginning  by  the 

1  Another  name  for  the  Buddhist  Paradise  of  the  West,  —  the  heaven  of 
Amida  (Amitabha). 


A   WOMAN'S    DIARY  115 

best  possible  means,  your  child  could  not  have  lived  more 
than  about  a  week.  If  she  had  been  ten  or  eleven  years  old, 
she  might  possibly  have  been  saved  by  an  operation ;  but  in 
this  case  no  operation  could  have  been  attempted  —  the 
child  was  too  young."  Then  he  explained  to  us  that  the 
child  had  died  from  ajinzoen.1  .  .  . 

Thus  all  the  hopes  that  we  had,  and  all  the  pains  that 
we  took  in  caring  for  her,  and  all  the  pleasure  of  watch 
ing  her  grow  during  those  nine  months,  —  all  were  in  vain  ! 

But  we  two  were  at  last  able  to  find  some  ease  from  our 
sorrow  by  reflecting  that  our  relation  to  this  child,  from  the 
time  of  some  former  life,  must  have  been  very  slight  and 
weak.2 

In  the  loneliness  of  that  weary  time,  I  tried  to  express 
my  heart  by  writing  some  verses  after  the  manner  of  the 
story  of  Miyagino  and  Shinobu  in  the  gidayu-bon  3 :  — 

Kore,  kono  uchi  e  enzukishi  wa, 
Omoi  kaeseba  itsutose  mae ; 
Kondo  m5keshi  wa  onago  no  ko, 
Kawaii  mono  tote  sodatsuru  ka  to ;  — 


1  Nephritis. 

2  Or,    "very    thin    and    loose," — the    Karma-relation    being    emblematically 
spoken  of  as  a  bond  or  tie.      She  means,  of  course,  that  the  loss  of  the  child  was 
the  inevitable  consequence  of  some  fault  committed  in  a  previous  state  of  existence. 

3  Gidayii-bon,   ''the   book   of  the  giday~i."      There   are   many  gidayu   books. 
Gidayu  is  the  name  given  to  a  kind  of  musical  drama.      In  the  dramatic  composi 
tion  here  referred  to,  the  characters  Miyagino  and  Shinobu  are  sisters,  who  relate 
their  sorrows  to  each  other. 


n6  A   WOMAN'S    DIARY 

Waga  mi  no  nari  wa  uchi-wasure, 
Sodateshi  koto  mo,  nasake  nai. 
Koshita  koto  to  wa  tsuyushirazu, 
Kono  Hatsu  wa  buji  ni  sodatsuru  ka. 
Shubi  yo  seijin  shita  naraba, 
Yagate  muko  wo  tori 
Tanoshimash5  doshite  to. 
Monomi  yusan  wo  tashinande, 
Wagako  daiji  to, 

Otto  no  koto  mo,  Hatsu  no  koto  mo, 
Koishi  natsukashi  omo  no  wo ;  — 
Tanoshimi-kurashita  kai  mo  no. 
Oyako  ni  narishi  wa  ureshii  ga, 
Sakidatsu  koto  wo  miru  haha  no 
Kokoro  mo  suishite  tamoi  no  to  ! 

—  Te  wo  tori-kawasu  fufu  ga  nageki, 
Nageki  wo  tachi-giku  mo, 
Morai  nakishite  omoteguchi 
Shoji  mo  nururu  bakari  nari. 

Here  in  this  house  it  was  that  I  married  him ;  —  well  I  re 
member  the  day  — five  years  ago.  Here  was  born  the  girl-baby , 
—  the  loved  one  whom  we  hoped  to  rear.  Caring  then  no 
longer  for  my  person  [,  —  heedless  of  how  I  dressed  when  I  went 
out] ,  —  thinking  only  of  how  to  bring  her  «/>,  —  7  lived.  How 
pitiless  \this  doom  of  mine']  !  Never  had  I  even  dreamed  that 


A   WOMAN'S   DIARY  117 

such  a  thing  could  befall  me :  my  only  thoughts  were  as  to  how 
my  Hatsu  could  best  be  reared.  When  she  grows  up,  I  thought, 
soon  we  shall  find  her  a  good  husband,  to  make  her  life  happy. 
So,  never  going  out  for  pleasure-seeking,  I  studied  only  how  to 
care  for  my  little  one,  —  how  to  love  and  to  cherish  my  husband 
and  my  Hatsu.  Vain  now,  alas  !  this  hoped-for  joy  of  living 
only  for  her  sake.  .  .  .  Once  having  known  the  delight  of  the 
relation  of  mother  and  child,  deign  to  think  of  the  heart  of  the 
mother  who  sees  her  child  die  before  her  !  * 

\_A II  of  the  foregoing  is  addressed  to  the  spirit  of  the 
dead  child.  —  Translator.] 

Now,  while  husband  and  wife,  each  clasping  the  hands  of 
the  other,  make  lament  together,  if  any  one  pausing  at  the  en 
trance  should  listen  to  their  sorrow,  surely  the  paper  window 
would  be  moistened  by  tears  from  without. 

About  the  time  of  Hatsu's  death,  the  law  concerning 
funerals  was  changed  for  the  better ;  and  permission  was 
given  for  the  burning  of  corpses  in  Okubo.  So  I  asked 
Namiki  to  have  the  body  sent  to  the  temple  of  which  his 
family  had  always  been  parishioners,  —  providing  that 
there  should  be  no  [legal]  difficulty  about  the  matter. 
Accordingly  the  funeral  took  place  at  Monjoji,  —  a  temple 
belonging  to  the  Asakusa  branch  of  the  Hongwanji  Shin- 
shu ;  and  the  ashes  were  there  interred. 

1  I.e.  before  she  herself  (the  mother)  dies; — there  is  a  colloquial  phrase  in 
the  Japanese  text.  Ko  ga  oya  nl  sakidatsu  is  the  common  expression  :  "  the  child 
goes  before  the  parents,"  — that  is  to  say,  dies  before  the  parents. 


n8  A  WOMAN'S   DIARY 

—  My  sister  Ko  was  sick  in  bed  with  a  rather  bad  cold 
at  the  time  of  Hatsu's  death ;  but  she  visited  us  very  soon 
after  the  news  had  reached  her.     And  she  called  again  a 
few  days  later  to  tell  us  that  she  had  become  almost  well, 
and  that  we  had  no  more  cause  to  feel  anxious  about  her. 

—  As  for  myself,  I  felt  a  dread  of  going  out  anywhere ; 
and  I  did  not  leave  the  house  for  a  whole  month.    But  as 
custom  does  not  allow  one  to  remain  always  indoors,  I  had 
to  go  out  at  last ;  and  I  made  the  required  visit  to  father's 
and  to  my  sister's. 

****** 

—  Having  become  quite  ill,  I  hoped  that  mother  would 
be  able  to  help  me.     But   Ko  was  again  sick,  and  Yoshi 
\a  younger  sister  here  mentioned  for  the  first  time]  and  mother 
had  both  to  attend  her  constantly  :  so  I  could  get  no  aid 
from  father's  house.     There  was  no  one  to  help  me  except 
some  of  my  female  neighbours,  who  attended  me  out  of  pure 
kindness,  when  they  could  spare  the  time.     At  last  I  got 
Hori-Shi  to  engage  a  good  old  woman  to  assist  me ;  and 
under  her  kind  care  I  began  to  get  well.     About  the  begin 
ning  of  the  eighth  month  I  felt  much  stronger.   .   .   . 

On  the  fourth  day  of  the  ninth  month  my  sister  Ko 
died  of  consumption. 

—  It  had  been  agreed  beforehand  that  if  an  unexpected 
matter 1  came  to  pass,  my  younger  sister  Yoshi  should  be 
received  in  the  place  of  Ko.     As  Goto-Shi  found  it  incon 
venient  to  live  altogether  alone,  the  marriage  took  place  on 
the  eleventh  day  of  the  same  month ;  and  the  usual  con 
gratulations  were  offered. 

1  A  euphemistic  expression  for  death. 


A   WOMAN'S   DIARY  119 

On  the  last  day  of  the  same  month  Okada-Shi  suddenly 
died. 

We  found  ourselves  greatly  troubled  [pecuniarily  embar 
rassed]  by  the  expenses  that  all  these  events  caused  us. 

—  When  I  first  heard  that  Yoshi  had  been  received  so 
soon  after  the  death  of  Ko,  I  was  greatly  displeased.     But 
I  kept  my  feelings  hidden,  and  I  spoke  to  the  man  as  before. 

In  the  eleventh  month  Goto  went  alone  to  Sapporo. 

On  the  second  day  of  the  second  month,  thirty-third 
year  of  Meiji  [1900],  Goto-Shi  returned  to  Tokyo;  and 
on  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  same  month  he  went  away 
again  to  the  Hokkaido  [7<?z0],  taking  Yoshi  with  him. 

****** 

On  the  twentieth  day  of  the  second  month,  at  six  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  my  third  child  —  a  boy  —  was  born.  Both 
mother  and  child  were  well. 

—  We  had  expected  a  girl,  but  it  was  a  boy  that  was 
born ;  so,  when  my  husband  came  back  from  his  work,  he 
was  greatly  surprised  and  pleased  to  find  that  he  had  a  boy. 

—  But  the  child  was  not  well  able  to  take  the  breast :  so 
we  had  to  nourish  him  by  means  of  a  feeding-bottle. 

On  the  seventh  day  after  the  boy's  birth,  we  partly 
shaved  his  head.  And  in  the  evening  we  had  the  shichiya 
[seventh-day  festival]  — but,  this  time,  all  by  ourselves. 

—  My  husband  had  caught  a  bad  cold  some  time  before ; 
and   he  could  not  go  to  work  next   morning,  as  he   was 
coughing  badly.     So  he  remained  in  the  house. 


120  A    WOMAN'S    DIARY 

Early  in  the  morning  the  child  had  taken  his  milk  as 
usual.  But,  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  forenoon,  he  seemed 
to  be  suffering  great  pain  in  his  breast ;  and  he  began  to 
moan  so  strangely  that  we  sent  a  man  for  a  doctor.  Un 
fortunately  the  doctor  that  we  asked  to  come  was  out  of 
town ;  and  we  were  told  that  he  would  not  come  back  be 
fore  night.  Therefore,  we  thought  that  it  would  be  better 
to  send  at  once  for  another  doctor;  and  we  sent  for  one. 
He  said  that  he  would  come  in  the  evening.  But,  about 
two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  child's  sickness  suddenly 
became  worse;  and  a  little  before  three  o'clock  —  the 
twenty-seventh  day  of  the  second  month  —  aenaku  !l  —  my 
child  was  dead,  having  lived  for  only  eight  days.  .  .  . 

—  I  thought  to  myself  that,  even  if  this  new  misfortune 
did  not  cause  my  husband  to  feel  an  aversion  for  me,  thus 
having  to  part  with  all  my  children,  one  after  another, 
must  be  the  punishment  of  some  wrong  done  in  the  time 
of  a  former  life.  And,  so  thinking,  I  knew  that  my  sleeves 
would  never  again  become  dry,  —  that  the  rain  \of  tears] 
would  never  cease,  —  that  never  again  in  this  world  would 
the  sky  grow  clear  for  me. 

And  more  and  more  I  wondered  whether  my  husband's 
feelings  would  not  change  for  the  worse,  by  reason  of  his 
having  to  meet  such  trouble,  over  and  over  again,  on  my 
account.  I  felt  anxious  about  his  heart,  because  of  what 
already  was  in  my  own. 

Nevertheless,  he  only  repeated  the  words,  Temme'i  itashi- 

1  Aenaku  is  an  adjective  signifying,  according  to  circumstances,  ''feeble, "or 
"transitory,"  or  "  sad."  Its  use  here  might  best  be  rendered  by  some  such  phrase 
as  ' '  Piteous  to  say  !  '  * 


A   WOMAN'S    DIARY  121 

kata  kor'e  naku :  "  From  the  decrees  of  Heaven  there  is  no 
escape." 

—  I  thought  that  I  should  be  better   able  to  visit  the 
tomb  of  my  child  if  he  were  buried  in  some  temple  near 
us.     So  the  funeral  took  place  at  the  temple  called  Sempu- 
kuji  in  Okubo ;  and  the  ashes  were  buried  there.   .   .   . 

Tanoshimi  mo 
Samete  hakanashi 
Haru  no  yume  ! l 

[  Translation.'] 

—  All  the  delight  having  perished,  hopeless  I  remain  :  it  was 
only  a  dream  of  Spring  !  2 

[No  date.] 

...  I  wonder  whether  it  was  because  of  the  sorrow 
that  I  suffered  —  my  face  and  limbs  became  slightly  swol 
len  during  the  fortnight3  after  my  boy's  death. 

—  It  was  nothing  very   serious,  after   all,  and   it   soon 
went    away.   .   .   .     Now   the   period    of  twenty-one    days 
[the  period  of  danger\  is  past.   .   .   . 

1  Her  poem  bears  no  date. 

2  A   necessarily  free  translation  ;  —  the  lines  might  also  be  read  thus  :   "  Having 
awakened,  all  the  joy  fleets  and  fades; — it  was  only  a  dream  of  Spring."      The 
verb  sameru,  very  effectively  used  here,  allows  of  this  double  rendering ;  for  it  means 
either  "to  awake  "  or  "to  fade."     The  adjective  bakanashi  also  has  a  double  mean 
ing  :  according  to  circumstances  it  may  signify  either  "  fleeting  "    (evanescent)  or 
"hopeless"  (wretched). 

8  Lit.  "  the  first  two  nanuka  ":  one  nanuka  representing  a  period  of  seven  suc 
cessive  days  from  the  date  of  death. 


122  A   WOMAN'S   DIARY 

Here  the  poor  mother's  diary  ends.  The  closing 
statement  regarding  the  time  of  twenty-one  days 
from  the  birth  of  her  child  leaves  it  probable  that 
these  last  lines  were  written  on  the  thirteenth  or 
fourteenth  day  of  the  third  month.  She  died  on 
the  twenty-eighth  of  the  same  month. 

I  doubt  if  any  one  not  really  familiar  with  the 
life  of  Japan  can  fully  understand  this  simple 
history.  But  to  imagine  the  merely  material 
conditions  of  the  existence  here  recorded  should  not 
be  difficult :  —  the  couple  occupying  a  tiny  house 
of  two  rooms  —  one  room  of  six  mats  and  one 
of  three;  —  the  husband  earning  barely  £i  per 
month ;  —  the  wife  sewing,  washing,  cooking  (out 
side  the  house,  of  course) ;  —  no  comfort  of  fire, 
even  during  the  period  of  greatest  cold.  I  estimate 
that  the  pair  must  have  lived  at  an  average  cost 
of  about  seven  pence  a  day,  not  including  house- 
rent.  Their  pleasures  were  indeed  very  cheap : 
a  payment  of  twopence  admitted  them  to  theatres 
or  to  £/W<zjy#-recitations  ;  and  their  sight-seeing  was 
done  on  foot.  Yet  even  these  diversions  were 
luxuries  for  them.  Expenses  represented  by  the 
necessary  purchase  of  clothing,  or  by  the  obligation 


A   WOMAN'S    DIARY  123 

of  making  presents  to  kindred  upon  the  occasion 
of  a  marriage  or  a  birth  or  a  death,  could  only  have 
been  met  by  heroic  economy.  Now  it  is  true  that 
thousands  of  poor  folk  in  Tokyo  live  still  more 
cheaply  than  this,  —  live  upon  a  much  smaller 
income  than  £1  per  month,  —  and  nevertheless 
remain  always  clean,  neat,  and  cheerful.  But  only 
a  very  strong  woman  can  easily  bear  and  bring 
up  children  under  such  conditions,  —  conditions 
much  more  hazardous  than  those  of  the  harder  but 
healthier  peasant-life  of  the  interior.  And,  as 
might  be  supposed,  the  weakly  fail  and  perish  in 
multitude. 

Readers  of  the  diary  may  have  wondered  at  the 
eagerness  shown  by  so  shy  and  gentle  a  woman 
to  become  thus  suddenly  the  wife  of  a  total  stranger, 
about  whose  character  she  knew  absolutely  nothing. 
A  majority  of  Japanese  marriages,  indeed,  are 
arranged  for  in  the  matter-of-fact  way  here  described, 
and  with  the  aid  of  a  nakbdo  ;  but  the  circumstances, 
in  this  particular  case,  were  exceptionally  discom 
forting.  The  explanation  is  pathetically  simple. 
All  good  girls  are  expected  to  marry ;  and  to 
remain  unmarried  after  a  certain  age  is  a  shame  and 


124  A   WOMAN'S    DIARY 

a  reproach.  The  dread  of  such  reproach,  doubtless, 
impelled  the  writer  of  the  diary  to  snatch  at  the 
first  chance  of  fulfilling  her  natural  destiny.  She 
was  already  twenty-nine  years  old  ;  —  another  such 
chance  might  never  have  offered  itself. 

To  me  the  chief  significance  of  this  humble 
confession  of  struggle  and  failure  is  not  in  the 
utterance  of  anything  exceptional,  but  in  the  ex 
pression  of  something  as  common  to  Japanese 
life  as  blue  air  and  sunshine.  The  brave  resolve 
of  the  woman  to  win  affection  by  docility  and  by 
faultless  performance  of  duty,  her  gratitude  for 
every  small  kindness,  her  childlike  piety,  her 
supreme  unselfishness,  her  Buddhist  interpretation 
of  suffering  as  the  penalty  for  some  fault  committed 
in  a  previous  life,  her  attempts  to  write  poetry 
when  her  heart  was  breaking,  —  all  this,  indeed,  I 
find  touching,  and  more  than  touching.  But  I 
do  not  find  it  exceptional.  The  traits  revealed 
are  typical,  —  typical  of  the  moral  nature  of  the 
woman  of  the  people.  Perhaps  there  are  not  many 
Japanese  women  of  the  same  humble  class  who 
could  express  their  personal  joy  and  pain  in  a 
record  at  once  so  artless  and  pathetic ;  but  there  are 


A   WOMAN'S    DIARY 


125 


millions  of  such  women  inheriting  —  from  ages  and 
ages  of  unquestioning  faith  —  a  like  conception  of 
life  as  duty,  and  an  equal  capacity  of  unselfish 
attachment. 


Heike-gani 


Heike-gani 

IN  various  countries  of  which  the  peoples  appear 
strange  to  us,  by  reason  of  beliefs,  ideas, 
customs,  and  arts  having  nothing  in  common 
with  our  own,  there  can  be  found  something  in 
the  nature  of  the  land  —  something  in  its  flora  or 
fauna  —  characterized  by  a  corresponding  strange 
ness.  Probably  the  relative  queerness  of  the  exotic 
nature  in  such  regions  helped  more  or  less  to 
develop  the  apparent  oddity  of  the  exotic  mind. 
National  differences  of  thought  or  feeling  should 
not  be  less  evolutionally  interpretable  than  the 
forms  of  vegetables  or  of  insects ;  and,  in  the 
mental  evolution  of  a  people,  the  influence  of  en 
vironment  upon  imagination  must  be  counted  as 
a  factor.  .  .  . 

These  reflections  were  induced  by  a  box  of  crabs 
sent   me    from    the    Province    of  Choshu,  —  crabs 
possessing  that  very  same  quality  of  grotesqueness 
K  129 


130  HEIKE-GANI 

which  we  are  accustomed  to  think  of  as  being 
peculiarly  Japanese.  On  the  backs  of  these  crea 
tures  there  are  bossings  and  depressions  that  curi 
ously  simulate  the  shape  of  a  human  face,  —  a 
distorted  face,  —  a  face  modelled  in  relief  as  a 
Japanese  craftsman  might  have  modelled  it  in  some 
moment  of  artistic  whim. 

Two  varieties  of  such  crabs  —  nicely  dried  and 
polished  —  are  constantly  exposed  for  sale  in  the 
shops  of  Akamagaseki  (better  known  to  foreigners 


by  the  name  of  Shimonoseki).  They  are  caught 
along  the  neighbouring  stretch  of  coast  called  Dan- 
no-Ura,  where  the  great  clan  of  the  Heike,  or 
Taira,  were  exterminated  in  a  naval  battle,  seven 
centuries  ago,  by  the  rival  clan  of  Genji,  or  Mina- 
moto.  Readers  of  Japanese  history  will  remember 


HEIKE-GANI    ^<L  131 

the  story  of  the  Imperial  Nun,  Nii-no-Ama,  who 
in  the  hour  of  that  awful  tragedy  composed  a 
poem,  and  then  leaped  into  the  sea,  with  the  child- 
emperor  Antoku  in  her  arms. 

Now  the  grotesque  crabs  of  this  coast  are  called 
Heike-gani,  or  "  Heike-crabs,"  because  of  a  legend 
that  the  spirits  of  the  drowned  and  slaughtered 


warriors  of  the  Heike-clan  assumed  such  shapes ; 
and  it  is  said  that  the  fury  or  the  agony  of  the 
death-struggle  can  still  be  discerned  in  the  faces 
upon  the  backs  of  the  crabs.  But  to  feel  the 
romance  of  this  legend  you  should  be  familiar  with 
old  pictures  of  the  fight  of  Dan-no-Ura,  —  old 
coloured  prints  of  the  armoured  combatants,  with 
their  grim  battle-masks  of  iron  and  their  great 
fierce  eyes. 


132 


HEIKE-GANI 


The  smaller  variety  of  crab  is  known  simply  as  a 
"  Heike-crab,"  — r  Heike-gani.  Each  Heike-gani 
is  supposed  to  be  animated  by  the  spirit  of  a  com 
mon  Heike  warrior  only, — an  ordinary  samurai. 
But  the  larger  kind  of  crab  is  also  termed  Taish5- 
gani  ("  Chieftain-crab  "),  orJTatsugashira  ("  Dragon- 
helmet  ") ;  and  all  Taisho-gani  or  Tatsugashira  are 
thought  to  be  animated  by  ghosts  of  those  great 
Heike  captains  who  bore  upon  their  helmets 
monsters  unknown  to  Western  heraldry,  and  glitter 
ing  horns,  and  dragons  of  gold. 

I  got  a  Japanese  friend  to  draw  for  me  the  two 
pictures  of  Heike-gani  herewith  reproduced ;  and 
I  can  vouch  for  their  accuracy.  But  I  told  him 
that  I  could  not  see  anything  resembling  a  hel 
met,  either  in  his  drawing  of 
the  Tatsugashira,  nor  in  the 
original  figure  upon  the  back 
of  the  crab. 

"  Can  you  see  it  ? "    I  asked. 

"  Why,  yes,  —  somewhat  like 
this,"  he  answered,  making  the 
following  sketch  :  — 

"  Well,   I  can  make  out  part  of  the  head-gear/' 


HEIKE-GANI 


I  said  ;  —  "  but  that  outline  of  yours  is  not  accord 
ing  to  facts,  —  and  that  face  is  vapid  as  the  face 
of  the  Moon.  Look  at  the  nightmare  on  the  back 
of  the  real  crab  !  .  .  " 


Fireflies 


Fireflies 

I 

I  WANT  to  talk  about  Japanese  fireflies,  but 
not  entomologically.  If  you  are  interested, 
as  you  ought  to  be,  in  the  scientific  side  of  the 
subject,  you  should  seek  enlightenment  from  a 
Japanese  professor  of  biology,  now  lecturing  at  the 
Imperial  University  of  Tokyd.  He  signs  himself 
"Mr.  S.  Watase"  (the  "S"  standing  for  the  per 
sonal  name  Shozaburo) ;  and  he  has  been  a  teacher 
as  well  as  a  student  of  science  in  America,  where  a 
number  of  his  lectures  have  been  published,1  — 
lectures  upon  animal  phosphorescence,  animal  elec 
tricity,  the  light-producing  organs  of  insects  and 
fishes,  and  other  wonderful  topics  of  biology.  He 
can  tell  you  all  that  is  known  concerning  the  mor 
phology  of  fireflies,  the  physiology  of  fireflies,  the 

1  Professor  Watase  is  a  graduate  of  Johns  Hopkins.  Since  this  essay  was 
written,  his  popular  Japanese  lectures  upon  the  firefly  have  been  reissued  in  a  single 
pretty  volume.  The  coloured  frontispiece,  —  showing  fireflies  at  night  upon  a 
willow-branch,  —  is  alone  worth  the  price  of  the  book. 

137 


138  FIREFLIES 

photometry  of  fireflies,  the  chemistry  of  their  lumi 
nous  substance,  the  spectroscopic  analysis  of  their 
light,  and  the  significance  of  that  light  in  terms  of 
ether-vibration.  By  experiment  he  can  show  you 
that,  under  normal  conditions  of  temperature  and 
environment,  the  number  of  light-pulsations  pro 
duced  by  one  species  of  Japanese  firefly  averages 
twenty-six  per  minute ;  and  that  the  rate  suddenly 
rises  to  sixty-three  per  minute,  if  the  insect  be 
frightened  by  seizure.  Also  he  can  prove  to  you 
that  another  and  smaller  kind  of  firefly,  when  taken 
in  the  hand,  will  increase  the  number  of  its  light- 
pulsings  to  upward  of  two  hundred  per  minute. 
He  suggests  that  the  light  may  be  of  some  protec 
tive  value  to  the  insect,  —  like  the  "warning 
colours  "  of  sundry  nauseous  caterpillars  and  butter 
flies, —  because  the  firefly  has  a  very  bitter  taste, 
and  birds  appear  to  find  it  unpalatable.  (Frogs, 
he  has  observed,  do  not  mind  the  bad  taste :  they 
fill  their  cold  bellies  with  fireflies  till  the  light  shines 
through  them,  much  as  the  light  of  a  candle-flame 
will  glow  through  a  porcelain  jar.)  But  whether  of 
protective  value  or  not,  the  tiny  dynamo  would 
seem  to  be  used  in  a  variety  of  ways,  —  as  a  photo- 
telegraph,  for  example.  As  other  insects  converse 


FIREFLIES  139 

by  sound  or  by  touch,  the  firefly  utters  its  emotion 
in  luminous  pulsings  :  its  speech  is  a  language  of 
light.  ...  I  am  only  giving  you  some  hints  about 
the  character  of  the  professor's  lectures,  which 
are  never  merely  technical.  And  for  the  best  part 
of  this  non-scientific  essay  of  mine,  —  especially 
that  concerning  the  capture  and  the  sale  of  fireflies 
in  Japan,  —  I  am  indebted  to  some  delightful 
lectures  which  he  delivered  last  year  to  Japanese 

audiences  in  Tokyo. 

II 

As  written  to-day,  the  Japanese  name  of  the  fire 
fly  (botaru)  is  ideographically  composed  with  the 
sign  for  fire,  doubled,  above  the  sign  for  insect. 
The  real  origin  of  the  word  is  nevertheless  doubt 
ful  ;  and  various  etymologies  have  been  suggested. 
Some  scholars  think  that  the  appellation  anciently 
signified  "  the  First-born  of  Fire " ;  while  others 
believe  that  it  was  first  composed  with  syllables 
meaning  "star"  and  "drop."  The  more  poetical 
of  the  proposed  derivations,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  are 
considered  the  least  probable.  But  whatever  may 
have  been  the  primal  meaning  of  the  word  hotaru, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  romantic  quality  of 
certain  folk-names  still  given  to  the  insect. 


FIREFLIES 

Two  species  of  firefly  have  a  wide  distribution 
in  Japan ;  and  these  have  been  popularly  named 
Genji-botaru  and  Heike-botaru :  that  is  to  say,  "  the 
M inamo to- Firefly  "  and  "the  Taira-Firefly."  A 
legend  avers  that  these  fireflies  are  the  ghosts  of 
the  old  Minamoto  and  Taira  warriors ;  that, 
even  in  their  insect  shapes,  they  remember  the 
awful  clan-struggle  of  the  twelfth  century ;  and 
\that  once  every  year,  on  the  night  of  the  twentieth 
day  of  the  fourth  month,1  they  fight  a  great  battle 
on  the  Uji  River.  Therefore,  on  that  night  all 
caged  fireflies  should  be  set  free,  in  order  that 
they  may  be  able  to  take  part  in  the  contest. 

The  Genji-botaru  is  the  largest  of  Japanese  fire 
flies, —  the  largest  species,  at  least,  in  Japan  proper, 
not  including  the  Loochoo  Islands.  It  is  found  in 
almost  every  part  of  the  country  from  Kyushu  to 
Oshu.  The  Heike-botaru  ranges  further  north, 
being  especially  common  in  Yezo  ;  but  it  is  found 
also  in  the  central  and  southern  provinces.  It  is 
smaller  than  the  Genji,  and  emits  a  feebler  light. 

1  By  the  old  calendar.  According  to  the  new  calendar,  the  date  of  the  Firefly 
Battle  would  be  considerably  later  :  last  year  (1901)  it  fell  upon  the  tenth  day  of 
the  sixth  month. 


FIREFLIES  141 

The  fireflies  commonly  sold  by  insect-dealers  in 
Tokyo,  Osaka,  Ky5to,  and  other  cities,  are  of  the 
larger  species.  Japanese  observers  have  described 
the  light  of  both  insects  as  "  tea-coloured  "  (cba-ird), 

the  tint  of  the  ordinary  Japanese  infusion,  when 

the  leaf  is  of  good  quality,  being  a  clear  greenish 
yellow.  But  the  light  of  a  fine  Genji-firefly  is  so 
brilliant  that  only  a  keen  eye  can  detect  the  greenish 
colour :  at  first  sight  the  flash  appears  yellow  as  the 
flame  of  a  wood-fire,  and  its  vivid  brightness  has  not 
been  overpraised  in  the  following  bokku :  — 

Kagaribi  mo 
Hotaru  mo  hikaru  — 
Genji  kana ! 

"  Whether  it  be  a  glimmering  of  festal-fires l  [far  away] , 
or  a  glimmering  of  fireflies,  [one  can  hardly  tell]  —  ah,  it 
is  the  Genji !  " 

Although  the  appellations  Genji-botaru  and  Heike- 
botaru  are  still  in  general  use,  both  insects  are 

1  The  term  kagar-bi,  often  translated  by  "  bonfire,"  here  especially  refers  to  the 
little  wood-fires  which  are  kindled,  on  certain  festival  occasions,  in  front  of  every 
threshold  in  the  principal  street  of  a  country  town,  or  village.  During  the  festival 
of  the  Bon  such  little  fires  are  lighted  in  many  parts  of  the  country  to  welcome  the 
returning  ghosts, 


142  FIREFLIES 

known  by  other  folk-names.  In  different  prov 
inces  the  Genji  is  called  O-botaru^  or  "  Great  Fire 
fly  "  ;  Usbi-botaru,  or  "  Ox-Firefly  "  ;  Kuma-botaru, 
or  "Bear-Firefly";  and  Uji-botaru,  or  "Firefly  of 
Uji," —  not  to  mention  such  picturesque  appella 
tions  as  Komoso-botaru  and  Tamabuki-botaru^  which 
could  not  be  appreciated  by  the  average  Western 
reader.  The  Heike-botaru  is  also  called  Hime-botaru, 
or  "  Princess-Firefly  "  ;  Nennei-botaru,  or  "  Baby- 
Firefly";  and  Turei-botaru,  or  "Ghost-Firefly." 
But  these  are  only  examples  chosen  at  random  :  in 
almost  every  part  of  Japan  there  is  a  special  folk- 
name  for  the  insect. 

Ill 

THERE  are  many  places  in  Japan  which  are  fa 
mous  for  fireflies,  —  places  which  people  visit  in 
summer  merely  to  enjoy  the  sight  of  the  fireflies. 
Anciently  the  most  celebrated  of  all  such  places  was 
a  little  valley  near  Ishiyama,  by  the  lake  of  Omi. 
It  is  still  called  Hotaru-Dani,  or  the  Valley  of 
Fireflies.  Before  the  Period  of  Genroku  (1688- 
1703),  the  swarming  of  the  fireflies  in  this  valley, 
during  the  sultry  season,  was  accounted  one  of  the 
natural  marvels  of  the  country.  The  fireflies  of  the 


FIREFLIES  143 

Hotaru-Dani  are  still  celebrated  for  their  size ;  but 
that  wonderful  swarming  of  them,  which  old  writers 
described,  is  no  longer  to  be  seen  there.  At  pres 
ent  the  most  famous  place  for  fireflies  is  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Uji,  in  Yamashiro.  Uji,  a  pretty 
little  town  in  the  centre  of  the  celebrated  tea-district, 
is  situated  on  the  Ujigawa,  and  is  scarcely  less  famed 
for  its  fireflies  than  for  its  teas.  Every  summer 
special  trains  run  from  Kyotd  and  Osaka  to  Uji, 
bringing  thousands  of  visitors  to  see  the  fireflies. 
But  it  is  on  the  river,  at  a  point  several  miles  from 
the  town,  that  the  great  spectacle  is  to  be  witnessed, 
—  the  Hotaru-Kassen,  or  Firefly  Battle.  The 
stream  there  winds  between  hills  covered  with 
vegetation ;  and  myriads  of  fireflies  dart  from  either 
bank,  to  meet  and  cling  above  the  water.  At  mo 
ments  they  so  swarm  together  as  to  form  what 
appears  to  the  eye  like  a  luminous  cloud,  or  like  a 
great  ball  of  sparks.  The  cloud  soon  scatters,  or 
the  ball  drops  and  breaks  upon  the  surface  of  the 
current,  and  the  fallen  fireflies  drift  glittering  away  ; 
but  another  swarm  quickly  collects  in  the  same 
locality.  People  wait  all  night  in  boats  upon  the 
river  to  watch  the  phenomenon.  After  the  Hotaru- 
Kassen  is  done,  the  Ujikawa,  covered  with  the  still 


144  FIREFLIES 

sparkling  bodies  of  the  drifting  insects,  is  said  to 
appear  like  the  Milky  Way,  or,  as  the  Japanese 
more  poetically  call  it,  the  River  of  Heaven.  Per 
haps  it  was  after  witnessing  such  a  spectacle  that  the 
great  female  poet,  Chiyo  of  Kaga,  composed  these 
verses :  — 

Kawa  bakari, 

Yami  wa  nagarete  —  ? 
Hotaru  kana ! 

—  Which  may  be  thus  freely  rendered  :  — 


cc 


Is    it    the    river    only  ?  —  or    is    the   darkness    itself 
drifting  ?   .  .  .     Oh,  the  fireflies  !   .  .  .  "  * 


IV 

MANY  persons  in  Japan  earn  their  living  during 
the  summer  months  by  catching  and  selling  fireflies  : 
indeed,  the  extent  of  this  business  entitles  it  to 
be  regarded  as  a  special  industry.  The  chief  centre 
of  this  industry  is  the  region  about  Ishiyama,  in 
Goshu,  by  the  Lake  of  Omi,  —  a  number  of 
houses  there  supplying  fireflies  to  many  parts  of  the 
country,  and  especially  to  the  great  cities  of  Osaka 

1  That  is  to  say,    "  Do  I  see  only  fireflies  drifting  with  the  current  ?  or  is  the 
Night  itself  drifting,  with  its  swarming  of  stars  ?" 


FIREFLIES  145 

and  Kyoto.  From  sixty  to  seventy  firefly-catchers 
are  employed  by  each  of  the  principal  houses  during 
the  busy  season.  Some  training  is  required  for 
the  occupation.  A  tyro  might  find  it  no  easy 
matter  to  catch  a  hundred  fireflies  in  a  single  night ; 
but  an  expert  has  been  known  to  catch  three  thou 
sand.  The  methods  of  capture,  although  of  the 
simplest  possible  kind,  are  very  interesting  to  see. 

Immediately  after  sunset,  the  firefly-hunter  goes 
forth,  with  a  long  bamboo  pole  upon  his  shoulder, 
and  a  long  bag  of  brown  mosquito-netting  wound, 
like  a  girdle,  about  his  waist.  When  he  reaches 
a  wooded  place  frequented  by  fireflies,  —  usually 
some  spot  where  willows  are  planted,  on  the  bank 
of  a  river  or  lake,  —  he  halts  and  watches  the  trees. 
As  soon  as  the  trees  begin  to  twinkle  satisfactorily, 
he  gets  his  net  ready,  approaches  the  most  luminous 
tree,  and  with  his  long  pole  strikes  the  branches. 
The  fireflies,  dislodged  by  the  shock,  do  not  im 
mediately  take  flight,  as  more  active  insects  would 
do  under  like  circumstances,  but  drop  helplessly 
to  the  ground,  beetle-wise,  where  their  light  — 
always  more  brilliant  in  moments  of  fear  or  pain  — 
renders  them  conspicuous.  If  suffered  to  remain 
upon  the  ground  for  a  few  moments,  they  will 


146  FIREFLIES 

fly  away.  But  the  catcher,  picking  them  up  with 
astonishing  quickness,  using  both  hands  at  once, 
deftly  tosses  them  into  bis  mouth  —  because  he 
cannot  lose  the  time  required  to  put  them,  one 
by  one,  into  the  bag.  Only  when  his  mouth  can 
hold  no  more,  does  he  drop  the  fireflies,  unharmed, 
into  the  netting. 

Thus  the  firefly-catcher  works  until  about  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  —  the  old  Japanese  hour 
of  ghosts,  —  at  which  time  the  insects  begin  to 
leave  the  trees  and  seek  the  dewy  soil.  There 
they  are  said  to  bury  their  tails,  so  as  to  remain 
viewless.  But  now  the  hunter  changes  his  tactics. 
Taking  a  •  bamboo  broom  he  brushes  the  surface 
of  the  turf,  lightly  and  quickly.  Whenever  touched 
or  alarmed  by  the  broom,  the  fireflies  display  their 
lanterns,  and  are  immediately  nipped  and  bagged. 
A  little  before  dawn,  the  hunters  return  to  town. 

At  the  firefly-shops  the  captured  insects  are 
sorted  as  soon  as  possible,  according  to  the  brilliancy 
of  their  light,  —  the  more  luminous  being  the 
higher-priced.  Then  they  are  put  into  gauze- 
covered  boxes  or  cages,  with  a  certain  quantity  of 
moistened  grass  in  each  cage.  From  one  hundred 
to  two  hundred  fireflies  are  placed  in  a  single  cage, 


FIREFLIES  147 

according  to  grade.  To  these  cages  are  attached 
small  wooden  tablets  inscribed  with  the  names  of 
customers,  —  such  as  hotel  proprietors,  restaurant- 
keepers,  wholesale  and  retail  insect-merchants,  and 
private  persons  who  have  ordered  large  quantities 
of  fireflies  for  some  particular  festivity.  The  boxes 
are  despatched  to  their  destinations  by  nimble 
messengers,  —  for  goods  of  this  class  cannot  be 
safely  intrusted  to  express  companies. 

Great  numbers  of  fireflies  are  ordered  for  display 
at  evening  parties  in  the  summer  season.  A  large 
Japanese  guest-room  usually  overlooks  a  garden ; 
and  during  a  banquet  or  other  evening  entertain 
ment,  given  in  the  sultry  season,  it  is  customary  to 
set  fireflies  at  liberty  in  the  garden  after  sunset, 
that  the  visitors  may  enjoy  the  sight  of  the  spar 
kling.  Restaurant-keepers  purchase  largely.  In  the 
famous  Dotombori  of  Osaka,  there  is  a  house  where 
myriads  of  fireflies  are  kept  in  a  large  space  enclosed 
by  mosquito-netting ;  and  customers  of  this  house 
are  permitted  to  enter  the  enclosure  and  capture  a 
certain  number  of  fireflies  to  take  home  with  them. 

The  wholesale  price  of  living  fireflies  ranges 
from  three  sen  per  hundred  up  to  thirteen  sen  per 


i48  FIREFLIES 

hundred,  according  to  season  and  quality.  Retail 
dealers  sell  them  in  cages ;  and  in  Tokyo  the 
price  of  a  cage  of  fireflies  ranges  from  three  sen 
up  to  several  dollars.  The  cheapest  kind  of  cage, 
containing  only  three  or  four  fireflies,  is  scarcely 
more  than  two  inches  square ;  but  the  costly  cages 
—  veritable  marvels  of  bamboo  work,  beautifully 
decorated  —  are  as  large  as  cages  for  song-birds. 
Firefly  cages  of  charming  or  fantastic  shapes  — 
model  houses,  junks,  temple-lanterns,  etc.  —  can  be 
bought  at  prices  ranging  from  thirty  sen  up  to 
one  dollar. 

Dead  or  alive,  fireflies  are  worth  money.  They 
are  delicate  insects,  and  they  live  but  a  short 
time  in  confinement.  Great  numbers  die  in  the 
insect-shops ;  and  one  celebrated  insect-house  is 
said  to  dispose  every  season  of  no  less  than  five 
sbo  —  that  is  to  say,  about  one  peck  —  of  dead  fire 
flies,  which  are  sold  to  manufacturing  establish 
ments  in  Osaka.  Formerly  fireflies  were  used 
much  more  than  at  present  in  the  manufacture  of 
poultices  and  pills,  and  in  the  preparation  of  drugs 
peculiar  to  the  practice  of  Chinese  medicine. 
Even  to-day  some  curious  extracts  are  obtained 
from  them ;  and  one  of  these,  called  Hotaru-no- 


FIREFLIES  149 

abura,  or  Firefly-grease,  is  still  used  by  wood 
workers  for  the  purpose  of  imparting  rigidity  to 
objects  made  of  bent  bamboo. 

A  very  curious  chapter  on  firefly-medicine  might 
be  written  by  somebody  learned  in  the  old-fash 
ioned  literature.  The  queerest  part  of  the  sub 
ject  is  Chinese,  and  belongs  much  more  to 
demonology  than  to  therapeutics.  Firefly-oint 
ments  used  to  be  made  which  had  power,  it  was 
alleged,  to  preserve  a  house  from  the  attacks  of 
robbers,  to  counteract  the  effect  of  any  poison, 
and  to  drive  away  "  the  hundred  devils."  And 
pills  were  made  with  firefly-substance  which  were 
believed  to  confer  invulnerability ;  —  one  kind  of 
such  pills  being  called  Kansbogan,  or  "  Commander- 
in-Chief  Pills  "  ;  and  another,  Buigan,  or  "  Military- 
Power  Pills." 


FIREFLY-CATCHING,  as  a  business,  is  comparatively 
modern;  but  firefly-hunting,  as  a  diversion,  is  a 
very  old  custom.  Anciently  it  was  an  aristocratic 
amusement ;  and  great  nobles  used  to  give  fire 
fly-hunting  parties,  —  hotaru-gari.  In  this  busy 
era  of  Meiji  the  botaru-gari  is  rather  an  amuse- 


150  FIREFLIES 

ment  for  children  than  for  grown-up  folks ;  but 
the  latter  occasionally  find  time  to  join  in  the 
sport.  All  over  Japan,  the  children  have  their 
firefly-hunts  every  summer  ;  —  moonless  nights  be 
ing  usually  chosen  for  such  expeditions.  Girls 
follow  the  chase  with  paper  fans ;  boys,  with  long 
light  poles,  to  the  ends  of  which  wisps  of  fresh 
bamboo-grass  are  tied.  When  struck  down  by  a 
fan  or  a  wisp,  the  insects  are  easily  secured,  as 
they  are  slow  to  take  wing  after  having  once  been 
checked  in  actual  flight.  While  hunting,  the  chil 
dren  sing  little  songs,  supposed  to  attract  the 
shining  prey.  These  songs  differ  according  to 
locality ;  and  the  number  of  them  is  wonderful. 
But  there  are  very  few  possessing  that  sort  of  in 
terest  which  justifies  quotation.  Two  examples 
will  probably  suffice  :  — 

(Province  of  Chosbu.) 

Hotaru,  koi !    koi ! 
Koi-tomose ! 
Nippon  ichi  no 
Josan  ga, 

Ch5chin  tomoshite, 
Koi  to  ina ! 


FIREFLIES  151 

Come,  firefly,  come  !  Come  with  your  light  burning  ! 
The  nicest  girl  in  Japan  wants  to  know  if  you  will  not 
light  your  lantern  and  come  ! 

(Dialect  of  Sbimonoseki.) 

Hochin,  koi ! 
Hochin,  koi  ! 

Seki  no  machi  no  bon-san  ga, 
Chochin  tomoshite, 

Koi! 

Koi! 

Firefly,  come !  firefly,  come !  All  the  boys  of  Seki 
[want  you  to  come]  with  your  lantern  lighted !  Come  ! 
come  ! 

Of  course,  in  order  to  hunt  fireflies  successfully, 
it  is  necessary  to  know  something  about  their 
habits ;  and  on  this  subject  Japanese  children  are 
probably  better  informed  than  a  majority  of  my 
readers,  for  whom  the  following  notes  may  possess 
a  novel  interest :  — 

Fireflies  frequent  the  neighbourhood  of  water, 
and  like  to  circle  above  it ;  but  some  kinds 
are  repelled  by  impure  or  stagnant  water,  and 
are  only  to  be  found  in  the  vicinity  of  clear 
streams  or  lakes.  The  Genji-firefly  shuns  swamps, 


152  FIREFLIES 

ditches,  or  foul  canals ;  while  the  Heike-firefly 
seems  to  be  satisfied  with  any  water.  All  fire 
flies  seek  by  preference  grassy  banks  shaded  by 
trees ;  but  they  dislike  certain  trees  and  are  at 
tracted  by  others.  They  avoid  pine  trees,  for  in 
stance  ;  and  they  will  not  light  upon  rose-bushes. 
But  upon  willow  trees  —  especially  weeping  wil 
lows  —  they  gather  in  great  swarms.  Occasionally, 
on  a  summer  night,  you  may  see  a  drooping  wil 
low  so  covered  and  illuminated  with  fireflies  that 
all  its  branches  appear  "  to  be  budding  fire."  Dur 
ing  a  bright  moonlight  night  fireflies  keep  as  much 
as  possible  in  shadow ;  but  when  pursued  they  fly 
at  once  into  the  moonshine,  where  their  shimmer 
ing  is  less  easily  perceived.  Lamplight,  or  any 
strong  artificial  light,  drives  them  away ;  but  small 
bright  lights  attract  them.  They  can  be  lured,  for 
example,  by  the  sparkling  of  a  small  piece  of 
lighted  charcoal,  or  by  the  glow  of  a  little  Japanese 
pipe,  kindled  in  the  dark.  But  the  lamping  of  a 
single  lively  firefly,  confined  in  a  bottle,  or  cup,  of 
clear  glass,  is  the  best  of  all  lures. 

As  a  rule  the  children  hunt  only  in  parties,  for 
obvious  reasons.       In  former  years  it  would   have 


FIREFLIES  153 

been  deemed  foolhardy  to  go  alone  in  pursuit  of 
fireflies,  because  there  existed  certain  uncanny  be 
liefs  concerning  them.  And  in  some  of  the  coun 
try  districts  these  beliefs  still  prevail.  What  appear 
to  be  fireflies  may  be  malevolent  spirits,  or  goblin- 
fires,  or  fox-lights,  kindled  to  delude  the  wayfarer. 
Even  real  fireflies  are  not  always  to  be  trusted ; 
—  the  weirdness  of  their  kinships  might  be  inferred 
from  their  love  of  willow  trees.  Other  trees  have 
their  particular  spirits,  good  or  evil,  hamadryads  or 
goblins ;  but  the  willow  is  particularly  the  tree  of 
the  dead  —  the  favourite  of  human  ghosts.  Any 
firefly  may  be  a  ghost  —  who  can  tell  ?  Besides, 
there  is  an  old  belief  that  the  soul  of  a  person 
still  alive  may  sometimes  assume  the  shape  of  a 
firefly.  And  here  is  a  little  story  that  was  told 
me  in  Izuno  :  — 

One  cold  winter's  night  a  young  shizoku  of  Mat- 
sue,  while  on  his  way  home  from  a  wedding-party, 
was  surprised  to  perceive  a  firefly-light  hovering 
above  the  canal  in  front  of  his  dwelling.  Wonder 
ing  that  such  an  insect  should  be  flying  abroad  in 
the  season  of  snow,  he  stopped  to  look  at  it ;  and 
the  light  suddenly  shot  toward  him.  He  struck 


i54  FIREFLIES 

at  it  with  a  stick ;  but  it  darted  away,  and  flew  into 
the  garden  of  a  residence  adjoining  his  own. 

Next  morning  he  made  a  visit  to  that  house, 
intending  to  relate  the  adventure  to  his  neighbours 
and  friends.  But  before  he  found  a  chance  to 
speak  of  it,  the  eldest  daughter  of  the  family,  hap 
pening  to  enter  the  guest-room  without  knowing 
of  the  young  man's  visit,  uttered  a  cry  of  surprise, 
and  exclaimed,  "  Oh  !  how  you  startled  me  !  No 
one  told  me  that  you  had  called  ;  and  just  as  I 
came  in  I  was  thinking  about  you.  Last  night 
I  had  so  strange  a  dream !  I  was  flying  in  my 
dream,  —  flying  above  the  canal  in  front  of  our 
house.  It  seemed  very  pleasant  to  fly  over  the 
water ;  and  while  I  was  flying  there  I  saw  you 
coming  along  the  bank.  Then  I  went  to  you  to 
tell  you  that  I  had  learned  how  to  fly  ;  but  you 
struck  at  me,  and  frightened  me  so  that  I  still 
feel  afraid  when  I  think  of  it.  .  .  ."  After  hear 
ing  this,  the  visitor  thought  it  best  not  to  relate 
his  own  experience  for  the  time  being,  lest  the 
coincidence  should  alarm  the  girl,  to  whom  he  was 
betrothed. 


FIREFLIES  155 

VI 

FIREFLIES  have  been  celebrated  in  Japanese  poetry 
from  ancient  time ;  and  frequent  mention  of  them 
is  made  in  early  classical  prose.  One  of  the  fifty- 
four  chapters  of  the  famous  novel,  Genji-Monogari, 
for  example,  —  written  either  toward  the  close  of 
the  tenth  century  or  at  the  beginning  of  the 
eleventh,  —  is  entitled,  "  Fireflies  "  ;  and  the  author 
relates  how  a  certain  noble  person  was  enabled  to 
obtain  one  glimpse  of  a  lady's  face  in  the  dark  by 
the  device  of  catching  and  suddenly  liberating  a 
number  of  fireflies.  The  first  literary  interest  in 
fireflies  may  have  been  stimulated,  if  not  aroused, 
by  the  study  of  Chinese  poetry.  Even  to-day 
every  Japanese  child  knows  a  little  song  about  the 
famous  Chinese  scholar  who,  in  the  time  of  his 
struggles  with  poverty,  studied  by  the  light  of  a 
paper  bag  filled  with  fireflies.  But,  whatever  the 
original  source  of  their  inspiration,  Japanese  poets 
have  been  making  verses  about  fireflies  during 
more  than  a  thousand  years.  Compositions  on  the 
subject  can  be  found  in  every  form  of  Japanese 
poetry ;  but  the  greater  number  of  firefly  poems 
are  in  bokku>  —  the  briefest  of  all  measures,  consist- 


156  FIREFLIES 

ing  of  only  seventeen  syllables.  Modern  love- 
poems  relating  to  the  firefly  are  legion;  but  the 
majority  of  these,  written  in  the  popular  twenty- 
six-syllable  form  called  dodo'itsu,  appear  to  consist 
of  little  more  than  variants  of  one  old  classic 
fancy,  comparing  the  silent  burning  of  the  insect's 
light  to  the  consuming  passion  that  is  never 
uttered. 

Perhaps  my  readers  will  be  interested  by  the 
following  selection  of  firefly  poems.  Some  of  the 
compositions  are  many  centuries  old :  — 

CATCHING  FIREFLIES 

Mayoi-go  no 
Naku-naku  tsukamu 
Hotaru  kana ! 

Ah !  the  lost  child  !  Though  crying  and  crying,  still  he 
catches  fireflies  ! 

Kuraki  yori 
Kuraki  hito  yobu : 
Hotaru  kana ! 

Out  of  the  blackness  black  people  call  [to  each  other]  : 
[they  are  hunting]  fireflies  ! 


FIREFLIES  157 

lu  koto  no 
Kikoete  ya,  takaku 
Tobu  hotaru  ! 

Ah !   having  heard  the  voices  of  people  [crying  "  Catch 
it !  "] ,  the  firefly  now  flies  higher  ! 

Owarete  wa 
Tsuki  ni  kakururu 
Hotaru  kana ! 

Ah,    [the    cunning]    fireflies!    being   chased,  they   hide 
themselves  in  the  moonlight ! 

Ubayote 

Fumi-koroshitaru 
Hotaru  kana ! 

[Two  firefly-catchers]  having  tried  to  seize  it   [at  the 
same  time] ,  the  poor  firefly  is  trampled  to  death  ! 

THE  LIGHT  OF  FIREFLIES 

Hotarubi  ya! 

Mada  kureyaranu, 

Hashi  no  uri. 

Fireflies  already  sparkling  under  the  bridge,  —  and  it  is 
not  yet  dark ! 


158  FIREFLIES 

Mizu-gusa  no 
Kururu  to  miete 
Tobu  hotaru. 

When  the  water-grasses  appear  to  grow  dark,  the  fireflies 
begin  to  fly.1 

Oku-no-ma  ye 
Hanashite  mitaru 
Hotaru  kana ! 

Pleasant,  from   the   guest-room,2  to  watch   the   fireflies 
being  set  free  in  the  garden  ! 

Yo  no  fukuru 
Hodo  okinaru 
Hotaru  kana ! 

Ever  as  the  night  grows  [deeper,  the  light  of]  the  firefly 
also  grows  [brighter]  ! 

1  More  literally  :   "  The  water-grasses  having  appeared  to  grow  dark,  the  fireflies 
begin  to  fly."     The  phrase  kururu  to  miete  reminds  one  of  the  second  stanza  in 
that  most  remarkable  of  modern  fairy-ballads,  Mr.  Yeats'  "  Folk  of  the  Air"  : 

"  And  he  saw  how  the  weeds  grew  dark 

At  the  coming  of  night-tide  ; 
And  he  dreamed  of  the  long  dim  hair 
Of  Bridget  his  bride." 

2  Oku-no-ma  really  means  the  back  room.      But  the  best  rooms  in  a  Japanese 
house  are  always  in  the  rear,   and  so  arranged  as  to  overlook  the  garden.      The 
composer  of  the  verse  is  supposed  to  be  a  guest  at  some  banquet,   during  which 
fireflies  are  set  free  in  the  garden  that  the  visitors  may  enjoy  the  spectacle. 


FIREFLIES  159 

Kusakari  no 
Sode  yori  idzuru, 
Hotaru  kana ! 
See  !  a  firefly  flies  out  of  the  sleeve  of  the  grass-cutter ! 

Koko  kashiko, 
Hotaru  ni  aoshi 
Yoru  no  kusa. 

Here  and  there  the  night-grass  appears  green,  because 
of  the  light  of  the  fireflies. 

Chochin  no 
Kiyete,  t5toki 
Hotaru  kana ! 

How  precious  seems  [the  light  of]  the  firefly,  now  that 
the  lantern-light  has  gone  out ! 

Mado  kuraki, 

Shoji  wo  noboru 

Hotaru  kana ! 

The  window  itself  is  dark ;  but  see  !  —  a  firefly  is  creep 
ing  up  the  paper  pane ! 

Moe  yasuku, 

Mata  keye  yasuki, 

Hotaru  kana ! 

How   easily  kindled,  and   how  easily  put   out   again,  is 
the  light  of  the  firefly  ! 


160  FIREFLIES 

Hitotsu  kite, 
Niwa  no  tsuyukeki, 
Hotaru  kana ! 

Oh !  a  single  firefly  having  come,  one  can  see  the 
dew  in  the  garden  ! 

Te  no  hira  wo 
Hau  ashi  miyuru 
Hotaru  kana ! 

Oh,  this  firefly!  —  as  it  crawls  on  the  palm  of  my 
hand,  its  legs  are  visible  [by  its  own  light]  ! 

Osoroshi  no 
Te  ni  sukitoru, 
Hotaru  kana ! 

It  is  enough  to  make  one  afraid  !  See  !  the  light  of  this 
firefly  shows  through  my  hand  ! 1 

Sabeshisaya ! 
Isshaku  kiyete 
Yuku  hotaru ! 

How  uncanny  !  The  firefly  shoots  to  within  a  foot  of 
me,  and  —  out  goes  the  light ! 

1  That  is  to  say,  makes  the  fingers  appear  diaphanous,  as  if  held  before  a 
bright  candle-flame.  This  suggestion  of  rosy  semi-transparency  implies  a  female 
speaker. 


FIREFLIES  161 

Yuku  saki  no 

Sawaru  mono  naki 

Hotaru  kana! 

There  goes  a  firefly  !  but  there  is  nothing  in  front  of 
it  to  take  hold  of  [nothing  to  touch  :  what  can  it  be  seek 
ing  —  the  ghostly  creature  ?] . 

H5ki-gi  ni 
Ari  to  wa  miyete, 
Hotaru  kana! 

In  this  hoki-bush  it  certainly  appeared  to  be,  —  the  fire 
fly!  [but  where  is  it?] 

Sode  e  kite, 

Yohan  no  hotaru 

Sabishi  kana ! 

This  midnight  firefly  coming  upon  the  sleeve  of  my  robe 
—  how  weird l !  .  .  . 

Yanagi-ba  no 
Yami  saki  kaesu 
Hotaru  kana ! 

For  this  willow  tree  the  season  of  budding  would  seem 
to  have  returned  in  the  dark  —  look  at  the  fireflies  ! 

1  The  word  sabisbi  usually  signifies  lonesome  or  melancholy ;  but  the  sense  of  it 
here  is  "weird."  This  verse  suggests  the  popular  fancy  that  the  soul  of  a  person, 
living  or  dead,  may  assume  the  form  of  a  firefly. 


1 62  FIREFLIES 

Mizu  soko  no 

Kage  wo  kowagaru 

Hotaru  kana ! 

Ah,  he  is  afraid  of  the  darkness  under  the  water,  —  that 
firefly  !      [  Therefore  he  lights  his  tiny  lantern  /] 

Sugitaru  wa ! 
Me  ni  mono  sugoshi 
Tobu  hotaru  ! 

Ah,  I  am  going  too  far !   ...    The  flitting  of  the  fire 
flies  here  is  a  lonesome  sight ! 

Hotarubi  ya ! 
Kusa  ni  osamaru 
Yoakegata. 

Ah,  the  firefly-lights  !     As  the  darkness  begins  to  break, 
they  bury  themselves  in  the  grass. 

LOVE-POEMS 

Mureyo,  hotaru, 
Mono  hi  kao  no 
Miyuru  hodo  ! 

0  fireflies,  gather  here  long  enough  to  make  visible  the 
face  of  the  person  who  says  these  things  to  me !  * 

1  The  speaker  is  supposed  to  be  a  woman.     Somebody  has  been  making  love  to 
her  in  the  dark  j  and  she  half  doubts  the  sincerity  of  the  professed  affection. 


FIREFLIES  163 

Oto  mo  sede, 
Omoi  ni  moyuru, 

Hotaru  koso, 
Naku  mushi  yori  mo 
Aware  nari-keri ! 

Not  making  even  a  sound  [yet]  burning  with  desire,  — 
for  this  the  firefly  indeed  has  become  more  worthy  of  pity    *- 
than  any  insect  that  cries  !  * 

Yu  sareba, 
Hotaru  yori  ki  ni 

Moyuredomo, 
Hikari  mineba  ya 
Hito  no  tsurenaki ! 

When  evening  falls,  though  the  soul  of  me  burn  more 
than  burns  the  firefly,  as  the  light    [of  that   burning]    is    ! 
viewless,  the  person  [beloved]  remains  unmoved.2 

MISCELLANEOUS 

Suito  yuku, 
Mizu-gi  wa  suzushi, 
Tobu-hotaru  ! 

Here  at  the  water's  edge,  how  pleasantly  cool !  —  and 
the  fireflies  go  shooting  by  —  suito  ! 

1  From   the    Fugetsu-Sblu.     The   speaker  is  a  woman  :    by  the   simile   of  the 
silent-glowing  firefly  she  suggests  her  own  secret  love. 

2  From  the  Kokon  Wakasbu  Enkyo.     The  speaker  is  supposed  to  be  a  woman. 


1 64  FIREFLIES 

Midzu  e  kite, 
Hikuu  naritaru 
Hotaru  kana ! 

Having  reached  the  water,  he  makes  himself  low, — the 
firefly !  1 

Kuzu  no  ha  no 
Ura,  utsu  ame  ya, 
Tobu-hotaru ! 

The  rain  beats  upon  the  Kuzu-phnt  j  2  —  away  starts  the 
firefly  from  the  underside  of  the  leaf ! 

Ame  no  yo  wa, 
Shita  bakari  yuku 
Hotaru  kana ! 

Ah!  this  rainy  night  they  only  go  along  the  ground, — 
the  fireflies  ! 

Yura-yura  to 
Ko-ame  furu  yo  no 
Hotaru  kana ! 

How  they  swing  themselves,  to  and  fro,  the  fireflies,  on 
a  night  of  drizzling  rain  ! 

1  Or,  "  he  stoops  low."     The  word  hikui  really  means  low  of  stature. 

2  A  kind  of  arrowroot. 


FIREFLIES  165 

Akinureba, 
Kusa  nomi  zo 
Hotaru-kago. 

With  the  coming  of  dawn,  indeed,  there  is  nothing  visi 
ble  but  grass  in  the  cage  of  the  firefly  ! 

Yo  ga  akete, 
Mushi  ni  naritaru 
Hotaru  kana ! 

With  the  coming  of  the  dawn,  they  change  into  insects 
again,  —  these  fireflies  ! 

Hiru  mireba, 
Kubi-suji  akaki 
Hotaru  kana ! 

Oh,  this  firefly !  —  seen  by  daylight,  the  nape  of  its  neck 
is  red  ! 

Hotaru  kote, 
Shiba  shi-go-mai  ni 
Fuzei  kana ! 

Having  bought  fireflies,  respectfully  accord  them  the 
favour  of  four  or  five  tufts  of  lawn-grass  ! 1 

1  Not  literal }  and  I  doubt  whether  this  poem  could  be  satisfactorily  translated 
into  English.  There  is  a  delicate  humour  in  the  use  of  the  word  fuxei,  used  in 
speaking  humbly  of  one's  self,  or  of  one's  endeavours  to  please  a  superior. 


1 66  FIREFLIES 

SONG  OF  THE  FIREFLY-SELLER 

Futatsu,  mitsu, 
Hanashite  misenu 
Hotaru-uri. 

Mitsu,  yotsu  wa, 
Akari  ni  nokose 
Hotaru-uri. 

Onoga  mi  wa 
Yami  ni  kaeru  ya 
Hotaru-uri. 

He  will  not  give  you  the  chance  to  see  two  or  three 
fireflies  set  free,  —  this  firefly-seller. 

He  leaves  in  the  cage  three  or  four,  just  to  make  a  light, 
—  this  firefly-seller. 

For  now  he  must  take  his  own  body  back  into  the  dark 
night,  —  this  firefly-seller. 

VII 

BUT  the  true  romance  of  the  firefly  is  to  be  found 
neither  in  the  strange  fields  of  Japanese  folk-lore 
nor  in  the  quaint  gardens  of  Japanese  poetry,  but 
in  the  vast  profound  of  science.  About  science 
I  know  little  or  nothing.  And  that  is  why  I  am 
not  afraid  to  rush  in  where  angels  fear  to  tread.  If 


FIREFLIES  167 

I  knew  what  Professor  Watase  knows  about  fire 
flies,  I  should  feel  myself  less  free  to  cross  the 
boundaries  of  relative  experience.  As  it  is,  I  can 
venture  theories. 

The  tremendous  hypotheses  of  physical  and 
psychical  evolution  no  longer  seem  to  me  hypothe 
ses  :  I  should  never  dream  of  doubting  them.  I 
have  ceased  to  wonder  at  the  growth  of  Life  out  of 
that  which  has  been  called  not-living,  —  the  devel 
opment  of  organic  out  of  inorganic  existence.  The 
one  amazing  fact  of  organic  evolution,  to  which  my 
imagination  cannot  become  accustomed,  is  the  fact 
that  the  substance  of  life  should  possess  the  latent 
capacity  or  tendency  to  build  itself  into  complexi 
ties  incomprehensible  of  systematic  structure.  The 
power  of  that  substance  to  evolve  radiance  or  elec 
tricity  is  not  really  more  extraordinary  than  its 
power  to  evolve  colour;  and  that  a  noctiluca,  or 
a  luminous  centipede,  or  a  firefly,  should  produce 
light,  ought  not  to  seem  more  wonderful  than  that 
a  plant  should  produce  blue  or  purple  flowers.  But 
the  biological  interpretation  of  the  phenomenon 
leaves  me  wondering,  just  as  much  as  before,  at  the 
particular  miracle  of  the  machinery  by  which  the 


1 68  FIREFLIES 

light  is  made.  To  find  embedded  in  the  body  of 
the  insect  a  microscopic  working-model  of  every 
thing  comprised  under  the  technical  designation  of 
an  "  electric  plant,"  would  not  be  nearly  so  wonder 
ful  a  discovery  as  the  discovery  of  what  actually 
exists.  Here  is  a  firefly,  able,  with  its  infinitesimal 
dynamo,  to  produce  a  pure  cold  light  "  at  one  four- 
hundredth  part  of  the  cost  of  the  energy  expended 
in  a  candle  flame  "  !  .  .  .  Now  why  should  there 
have  been  evolved  in  the  tail  of  this  tiny  creature 
a  luminiferous  mechanism  at  once  so  elaborate  and 
so  effective  that  our  greatest  physiologists  and 
chemists  are  still  unable  to  understand  the  opera 
tion  of  it,  and  our  best  electricians  impotent  to  con 
ceive  the  possibility  of  imitating  it?  Why  should 
the  living  tissues  crystallize  or  build  themselves 
into  structures  of  such  stupefying  intricacy  and 
beauty  as  the  visual  organs  of  an  ephemera,  the 
electrical  organs  of  a  gymnotus,  or  the  luminiferous 
organs  of  a  firefly  ?  .  .  .  The  very  wonder  of  the 
thing  forbids  me  to  imagine  gods  at  work :  no  mere 
god  could  ever  contrive  such  a  prodigy  as  the  eye 
of  a  May-fly  or  the  tail  of  a  firefly. 

Biology    would    answer    thus:  —  "Though   it    is 
inconceivable  that  a  structure  like  this  should  have 


FIREFLIES 


169 


been  produced  by  accumulated  effects  of  function 
on  structure,  yet  it  is  conceivable  that  successive 
selections  of  favourable  variations  might  have  pro 
duced  it."  And  no  follower  of  Herbert  Spencer  is 
really  justified  in  wandering  further.  But  I  cannot 
rid  myself  of  the  notion  that  Matter,  in  some  blind 


infallible  way, 
and  that  in 
living  sub- 
slumber  infi- 
ities,  simply 
every  ultimate 
the  infinite 
tible  experi- 
ions  of  bill- 
ished  uni- 


remembers  ; 
every  unit  of 
stance  there 
nite  potential- 
because  to 
atom  belongs 
and  indestruc- 
ence  of  bill 
ions  of  van- 
verses. 


A    Drop    of   Dew 


Tsuyu  no  inochi. 

—  Buddhist  proverb. 


A   Drop   of  Dew 

TO  the  bamboo  lattice  of  my  study-window 
a  single  dewdrop  hangs  quivering. 

Its  tiny  sphere  repeats  the  colours  of  the 
morning,  —  colours  of  sky  and  field  and  far-off  trees. 
Inverted  images  of  these  can  be  discerned  in  it,  — 
also  the  microscopic  picture  of  a  cottage,  upside 
down,  with  children  at  play  before  the  door. 

Much  more  than  the  visible  world  is  imaged  by 
that  dewdrop :  the  world  invisible,  of  infinite  mys 
tery,  is  likewise  therein  repeated.  And  without  as 
within  the  drop  there  is  motion  unceasing,  —  motion 
forever  incomprehensible  of  atoms  and  forces, — 
faint  shiverings  also,  making  prismatic  reply  to 
touches  of  air  and  sun. 

Buddhism  finds  in  such  a  dewdrop  the  symbol 
of  that  other  microcosm  which  has  been  called  the 
Soul.  .  .  .  What  more,  indeed,  is  man  than  just 
such  a  temporary  orbing  of  viewless  ultimates,  — 
imaging  sky  and  land  and  life,  —  filled  with  per- 

173 


174  A   DROP   OF   DEW 

petual  mysterious  shudderings,  —  and  responding  in 
some  wise  to  every  stir  of  the  ghostly  forces  that 
environ  him?  .  .  . 

Soon  that  tiny  globe  of  light,  with  all  its  fairy 
tints  and  topsy-turvy  picturings,  will  have  vanished 
away.  Even  so,  within  another  little  while,  you 
and  I  must  likewise  dissolve  and  disappear. 

Between  the  vanishing  of  the  drop  and  the  van 
ishing  of  the  man,  what  difference  ?  A  difference 
of  words.  .  .  .  But  ask  yourself  what  becomes  of 
the  dewdrop  ? 

By  the  great  sun  its  atoms  are  separated  and 
lifted  and  scattered.  To  cloud  and  earth,  to  river 
and  sea  they  go ;  and  out  of  land  and  stream  and 
sea  again  they  will  be  updrawn,  only  to  fall  and  to 
scatter  anew.  They  will  creep  in  opalescent  mists  ; 
—  they  will  whiten  in  frost  and  hail  and  snow ;  — 
they  will  reflect  again  the  forms  and  the  colours  of 
the  macrocosm ;  they  will  throb  to  the  ruby 
pulsing  of  hearts  that  are  yet  unborn.  For  each 
one  of  them  must  combine  again  with  countless 
kindred  atoms  for  the  making  of  other  drops, — 
drops  of  dew  and  rain  and  sap,  of  blood  and 
sweat  and  tears. 


A   DROP   OF   DEW  175 

How  many  times  ?  Billions  of  ages  before  our 
sun  began  to  burn,  those  atoms  probably  moved  in 
other  drops,  reflecting  the  sky-tints  and  the  earth- 
colours  of  worlds  in  some  past  universe.  And  after 
this  present  universe  shall  have  vanished  out  of 
Space,  those  very  same  atoms  —  by  virtue  of  the 
forces  incomprehensible  that  made  them  —  will 
probably  continue  to  sphere  in  dews  that  will 
shadow  the  morning  beauty  of  planets  yet  to  be. 

Even  so  with  the  particles  of  that  composite 
which  you  term  your  very  Self.  Before  the  hosts 
of  heaven  the  atoms  of  you  were  —  and  thrilled, 
—  and  quickened,  —  and  reflected  appearances  of 
things.  And  when  all  the  stars  of  the  visible 
Night  shall  have  burnt  themselves  out,  those  atoms 
will  doubtless  again  take  part  in  the  orbing  of 
Mind,  —  will  tremble  again  in  thoughts,  emotions, 
memories,  —  in  all  the  joys  and  pains  of  lives  still 
to  be  lived  in  worlds  still  to  be  evolved.  .  .  . 

Your  personality  ?  —  your  peculiarity  ?  That 
is  to  say,  your  ideas,  sentiments,  recollections  ?  — 
your  very  particular  hopes  and  fears  and  loves  and 
hates  ?  Why,  in  each  of  a  trillion  of  dewdrops 


A   DROP    OF   DEW 


there  must  be  differences  infinitesimal  of  atom- 
thrilling  and  of  reflection.  And  in  every  one  of 
the  countless  pearls  of  ghostly  vapour  updrawn  from 
the  Sea  of  Birth  and  Death  there  are  like  infinitesi 
mal  peculiarities.  Your  personality  signifies,  in  the 


eternal  order, 
as  the  especial 
molecules  in 
of  any  single 
in  no  other 
thrilling  and 
be  ever  ex- 
same;  but  the 
continue  to 
fall,  and  there 
quivering  pic- 
very  delusion 
is  the  idea  of 


just  as  much 
motion  of 
the  shivering 
drop.  Perhaps 
drop  will  the 
the  picturing 
actly  the 
dews  will 
gather  and  to 
will  always  be 

tures The 

of  delusions 
death  as  loss. 


There  is  no  loss  —  because  there  is  not  any  Self 
that  can  be  lost.  Whatsoever  was,  that  you  have 
been;  —  whatsoever  is,  that  you  are;  —  whatsoever 
will  be,  that  you  must  become.  Personality!  — 
individuality  !  —  the  ghosts  of  a  dream  in  a  dream  ! 
Life  infinite  only  there  is ;  and  all  that  appears  to 
be  is  but  the  thrilling  of  it,  —  sun,  moon,  and  stars, 


A   DROP   OF   DEW  177 

—  earth,  sky,  and  sea,  —  and  Mind  and  Man,  and 
Space  and  Time.  All  of  them  are  shadows.  The 
shadows  come  and  go  ;  —  the  Shadow-Maker  shapes 
forever. 


Gaki 


Gaki 

—  "  Venerable  Nagasena,  are  there  such  things  as  demons  in  the  world  ?  *' 

—  "  Yes,  O  King." 

—  "Do  they  ever  leave  that  condition  of  existence  ?  " 

—  "Yes,  they  do." 

—  "But,    if  so,    why   is  it  that   the   remains   of  those   demons   are  never 
found  ? "   .   .   . 

—  "Their  remains  are  found,  O  King.   .   .   .     The  remains  of  bad  demons 
can  be  found  in  the  form  of  worms  and  beetles  and  ants  and  snakes  and  scorpions 
and  centipedes."   .  .  . 

—  The  Questions  of  King  Milinda. 

I 

THERE  are  moments  in  life  when  truths 
but  dimly  known  before  —  beliefs  first 
vaguely  reached  through  multiple  pro 
cesses  of  reasoning  —  suddenly  assume  the  vivid 
character  of  emotional  convictions.  Such  an  ex 
perience  came  to  me  the  other  day,  on  the  Suruga 
coast.  While  resting  under  the  pines  that  fringed 
the  beach,  something  in  the  vital  warmth  and  lu 
minous  peace  of  the  hour  —  some  quivering  rap 
ture  of  wind  and  light  —  very  strangely  bestirred 
an  old  belief  of  mine :  the  belief  that  all  being 

181 


1 82  GAKI 

is  One.  One  I  felt  myself  to  be  with  the  thrilling 
of  breeze  and  the  racing  of  wave,  —  with  every  flut 
ter  of  shadow  and  flicker  of  sun,  —  with  the  azure 
of  sky  and  sea,  —  with  the  great  green  hush  of  the 
land.  In  some  new  and  wonderful  way  I  found 
myself  assured  that  there  never  could  have  been 
a  beginning,  —  that  there  never  could  be  an  end. 
Nevertheless,  the  ideas  of  the  moment  were  not 
new :  the  novelty  of  the  experience  was  altogether 
in  the  peculiar  intensity  with  which  they  presented 
themselves ;  making  me  feel  that  the  flashing 
dragon-flies,  and  the  long  gray  sand-crickets,  and 
the  shrilling  semi  overhead,  and  the  little  red 
crabs  astir  under  the  roots  of  the  pines,  were  all 
of  them  brothers  and  sisters.  I  seemed  to  under 
stand,  as  never  before,  how  the  mystery  that  is 
called  the  Soul  of  me  must  have  quickened  in 
every  form  of  past  existence,  and  must  as  cer 
tainly  continue  to  behold  the  sun,  for  other  mill 
ions  of  summers,  through  eyes  of  other  countless 
shapes  of  future  being.  And  I  tried  to  think  the 
long  slow  thoughts  of  the  long  gray  crickets,  —  and 
the  thoughts  of  the  darting,  shimmering  dragon- 
flies,  —  and  the  thoughts  of  the  basking,  trilling  cic- 
adae,  —  and  the  thoughts  of  the  wicked  little  crabs 


GAKI  183 

that  lifted  up  their  claws  from  between  the  roots 
of  the  pines. 

Presently  I  discovered  myself  wondering  whether 
the  consequence  of  such  thoughts  could  have  any 
thing  to  do  with  the  recombination  of  my  soul- 
dust  in  future  spheres  of  existence.  For  thousands 
of  years  the  East  has  been  teaching  that  what  we 
think  or  do  in  this  life  really  decides,  —  through 
some  inevitable  formation  of  atom-tendencies,  or 
polarities,  —  the  future  place  of  our  substance,  and 
the  future  state  of  our  sentiency.  And  the  belief 
is  worth  thinking  about  —  though  no  amount  of 
thinking  can  enable  us  either  to  confirm  or  to 
disprove  it.  Very  possibly,  like  other  Buddhist 
doctrines,  it  may  adumbrate  some  cosmic  truth ; 
but  its  literal  assertions  I  doubt,  because  I  must 
doubt  the  power  ascribed  to  thought.  By  the 
whole  infinite  past  I  have  been  moulded,  within 
and  without :  how  should  the  impulse  of  a  mo 
ment  reshape  me  against  the  weight  of  the  eter 
nities  ?  .  .  .  Buddhism  indeed  answers  how,  and 
that  astounding  answer  is  irrefutable,  —  but  I 
doubt.  .  .  . 

Anyhow,  acts  and  thoughts,  according  to  Buddh 
ist  doctrine,  are  creative.  Visible  matter  is  made 


1 84  GAKI 

by  acts  and  thoughts,  —  even  the  universe  of  stars, 
and  all  that  has  form  and  name,  and  all  the  con 
ditions  of  existence.  What  we  think  or  do  is 
never  for  the  moment  only,  but  for  measureless 
time  :  it  signifies  some  force  directed  to  the  shap 
ing  of  worlds,  —  to  the  making  of  future  bliss  or 
pain.  Remembering  this,  we  may  raise  ourselves 
to  the  zones  of  the  Gods.  Ignoring  it,  we  may 
deprive  ourselves  even  of  the  right  to  be  reborn 
among  men,  and  may  doom  ourselves,  though 
innocent  of  the  crimes  that  cause  rebirth  in  hell, 
to  reenter  existence  in  the  form  of  animals,  or  of 
insects,  or  of  goblins, — gaki.1 

So  it  depends  upon  ourselves  whether  we  are 
to  become  insects  or  goblins  hereafter;  and  in 
the  Buddhist  system  the  difference  between  insects 
and  goblins  is  not  so  well  defined  as  might  be 
supposed.  The  belief  in  a  mysterious  relation 
between  ghosts  and  insects,  or  rather  between  spirits 
and  insects,  is  a  very  ancient  belief  in  the  East, 
where  it  now  assumes  innumerable  forms,  —  some 
unspeakably  horrible,  others  full  of  weird  beauty. 

1  The  word  gaki  is  the  Japanese  Buddhist  rendering  of  the  Sanscrit  term 
"preta,"  signifying  a  spirit  in  that  circle  or  state  of  torment  called  the  World  of 
Hungry  Ghosts. 


GAKI  185 

"The  White  Moth"  of  Mr.  Quiller-Couch  would 
not  impress  a  Japanese  reader  as  novel ;  for  the 
night-moth  or  the  butterfly  figures  in  many  a 
Japanese  poem  and  legend  as  the  soul  of  a  lost 
wife.  The  night-cricket's  thin  lament  is  perhaps 
the  sorrowing  of  a  voice  once  human  ;  —  the  strange 
red  marks  upon  the  heads  of  cicadae  are  characters 
of  spirit-names  ;  —  dragon-flies  and  grasshoppers 
are  the  horses  of  the  dead.  All  these  are  to  be 
pitied  with  the  pity  that  is  kin  to  love.  But  the 
noxious  and  dangerous  insects  represent  the  results 
of  another  quality  of  karma,  —  that  which  produces 
goblins  and  demons.  Grisly  names  have  been 
given  to  some  of  these  insects,  —  as,  for  example, 
Jigokumusbiy  or  "Hell-insect,"  to  the  ant-lion;  and 
Kappa-musbiy  to  a  gigantic  water-beetle  which  seizes 
frogs  and  fish,  and  devours  them  alive,  thus  realiz 
ing,  in  a  microcosmic  way,  the  hideous  myth  of 
the  Kappa,  or  River-goblin.  Flies,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  especially  identified  with  the  world  of 
hungry  ghosts.  How  often,  in  the  season  of  flies, 
have  I  heard  some  persecuted  toiler  exclaim,  "  Kyo 
no  bai  wa,  gaki  no  yo  da  ne  ?  "  (The  flies  to-day, 
how  like  gaki  they  are ! ) 


1 86  GAKI 

II 

IN  the  old  Japanese,  or,  more  correctly  speaking, 
Chinese  Buddhist  literature  relating  to  the  gaki, 
the  Sanscrit  names  of  the  gaki  are  given  in  a 
majority  of  cases;  but  some  classes  of  gaki  described 
have  only  Chinese  names.  As  the  Indian  belief 
reached  Japan  by  way  of  China  and  Korea,  it  is 
likely  to  have  received  a  peculiar  colouring  in  the 
course  of  its  journey.  But,  in  a  general  way,  the 
Japanese  classification  of  gaki  corresponds  closely 
to  the  Indian  classification  of  the  pretas. 

The  place  of  gaki  in  the  Buddhist  system  is 
but  one  degree  removed  from  the  region  of  the 
hells,  or  Jigokudo,  —  the  lowest  of  all  the  States  of 
Existence.  Above  the  Jigokudo  is  the  Gakido,  or 
World  of  Hungry  Spirits ;  above  the  Gakido  is 
the  Chikushodby  or  World  of  Animals  ;  and  above 
this,  again,  is  the  Shurado^  a  region  of  perpetual 
fighting  and  slaughter.  Higher  than  these  is  placed 
the  Ningendo,  or  World  of  Mankind. 

Now  a  person  released  from  hell,  by  exhaustion 
of  the  karma  that  sent  him  there,  is  seldom  reborn 
at  once  into  the  zone  of  human  existence,  but  must 
patiently  work  his  way  upward  thither,  through  all 


GAKI  187 

the  intermediate    states    of  being.      Many    of  the 
gaki  have  been  in  hell. 

But  there  are  gaki  also  who  have  not  been  in 
hell.  Certain  kinds  or  degrees  of  sin  may  cause 
a  person  to  be  reborn  as  a  gaki  immediately  after 
having  died  in  this  world.  Only  the  greatest 
degree  of  sin  condemns  the  sinner  directly  to  hell. 
The  second  degree  degrades  him  to  the  Gakidb. 
The  third  causes  him  to  be  reborn  as  an  animal. 

Japanese  Buddhism  recognizes  thirty-six  principal 
classes  of  gaki.  "  Roughly  counting,"  says  the 
Sh~ob~o-nen-j'b-kyo,  "  we  find  thirty-six  classes  of  gaki ; 
but  should  we  attempt  to  distinguish  all  the  differ 
ent  varieties,  we  should  find  them  to  be  innumera 
ble."  The  thirty-six  classes  form  two  great  divisions, 
or  orders.  One  comprises  all  "  Gaki-World-dwell- 
ers  "  (Gaki-Sekai-Ju) ;  —  that  is  to  say,  all  Hungry 
Spirits  who  remain  in  the  Gakido  proper,  and  are, 
therefore,  never  seen  by  mankind.  The  other 
division  is  called  Nin-cbu-Ju,  or  "  Dwellers  among 
men " :  these  gaki  remain  always  in  this  world, 
and  are  sometimes  seen. 

There  is  yet  another  classification  of  gaki,  accord 
ing  to  the  character  of  their  penitential  torment. 


i88  GAKI 

All  gaki  suffer  hunger  and  thirst;  but  there  are 
three  degrees  of  this  suffering.  The  Muzai-gaki 
represent  the  first  degree :  they  must  hunger  and 
thirst  uninterruptedly,  without  obtaining  any  nour 
ishment  whatever.  The  Stibzai-gaki  suffer  only  in 
the  second  degree :  they  are  able  to  feed  occasion 
ally  upon  impure  substances.  The  Usai-gaki  are 
more  fortunate  :  they  can  eat  such  remains  of  food 
as  are  thrown  away  by  men,  and  also  the  offerings 
of  food  set  before  the  images  of  the  gods,  or  before 
the  tablets  of  the  ancestors.  The  last  two  classes  of 
gaki  are  especially  interesting,  because  they  are  sup 
posed  to  meddle  with  human  affairs. 

Before  modern  science  introduced  exact  know 
ledge  of  the  nature  and  cause  of  certain  diseases, 
Buddhists  explained  the  symptoms  of  such  diseases 
by  the  hypothesis  of  gaki.  Certain  kinds  of  inter 
mittent  fever,  for  example,  were  said  to  be  caused  by 
a  gaki  entering  the  human  body  for  the  sake  of 
nourishment  and  warmth.  At  first  the  patient 
would  shiver  with  cold,  because  the  gaki  was  cold. 
Then,  as  the  gaki  gradually  became  warm,  the  chill 
would  pass,  to  be  succeeded  by  a  burning  heat.  At 
last  the  satiated  haunter  would  go  away,  and  the 


GAKI  189 

fever  disappear ;  but  upon  another  day,  and  usually 
at  an  hour  corresponding  to  that  of  the  first  attack, 
a  second  fit  of  ague  would  announce  the  return  of 
the  gaki.  Other  zymotic  disorders  could  be  equally 
well  explained  as  due  to  the  action  of  gaki. 

In  the  Stibb~o-nen-Jb-kyb  a  majority  of  the  thirty- 
six  kinds  of  gaki  are  associated  with  putrescence, 
disease,  and  death.  Others  are  plainly  identified 
with  insects.  No  particular  kind  of  gaki  is  identi 
fied  by  name  with  any  particular  kind  of  insect; 
but  the  descriptions  suggest  conditions  of  insect- 
life  ;  and  such  suggestions  are  reenforced  by  a 
knowledge  of  popular  superstitions.  Perhaps  the 
descriptions  are  vague  in  the  case  of  such  spirits 
as  the  Jiki-ketsu-gaki,  or  Blood-suckers ;  the  Jiki- 
niku-gaki,  or  Flesh-eaters ;  the  Jiki-da-gaki,  or 
*****  *-eaters  ;  the  Jiki-fun-gaki,  or  *  *  *  *-eaters  ; 
the  Jiki-doku-gaki,  or  Poison-eaters ;  the  Jiki-fu- 
gaki,  or  Wind-eaters ;  the  Jiki-ke-gaki,  or  Smell- 
eaters  ;  the  Jiki-kwa-gaki,  or  Fire-eaters  (perhaps 
they  fly  into  lamps  ?) ;  the  Sbikko-gaki,  who  devour 
corpses  and  cause  pestilence ;  the  Sbinen-gaki,  who 
appear  by  night  as  wandering  -fires ;  the  Sbin-ko- 
gaki,  or  Needle-mouthed ;  and  the  Kwaku-sbin-gaki> 


190  GAKI 

or  Cauldron-bodied,  —  each  a  living  furnace,  rilled 
with  flame  that  keeps  the  fluids  of  its  body  hum 
ming  like  a  boiling  pot.  But  the  suggestion  of 
the  following  excerpts1  will  not  be  found  at  all 
obscure :  — 

Y  "Jiki-man-gaki.  —  These  gaki  can  live  only  by  eating 
the  wigs  of  false  hair  with  which  the  statues  of  certain 
divinities  are  decorated.  .  .  .  Such  will  be  the  future  con 
dition  of  persons  who  steal  objects  of  value  from  Buddhist 
temples. 

"  Fujo-ko-hyaku-gaki.  —  These  gaki  can  eat  only  street 
filth  and  refuse.  Such  a  condition  is  the  consequence  of 
having  given  putrid  or  unwholesome  food  to  priests  or 
nuns,  or  pilgrims  in  need  of  alms. 

u  Cko-ken-ju-jiki-netsu-gaki.  —  These  are  the  eaters  of  the 
refuse  of  funeral-pyres  and  of  the  clay  of  graves.  .  .  . 
.*  They  are  the  spirits  of  men  who  despoiled  Buddhist  tem 
ples  for  the  sake  of  gain. 

"Ju-chu-gaki.  —  These  spirits  are  born  within  the  wood 
of  trees,  and  are  tormented  by  the  growing  of  the  grain. 
jJc~  .  .  .  Their  condition  is  the  result  of  having  cut  down 
shade-trees  for  the  purpose  of  selling  the  timber.  Persons 
who  cut  down  the  trees  in  Buddhist  cemeteries  or  temple- 
grounds  are  especially  likely  to  become  ju-chu-gaki"* 

1  Abridged  from  the  Sbobo-nen-jo-Kyo.     A  full  translation  of  the  extraordinary 
chapter  relating  to  the  gaki  would  try  the  reader's  nerves  rather  severely. 

2  The  following  story  of  a  tree-spirit  is  typical  :  — 

In  the  garden  of  a  Samurai  named  Satsuma  Shichizaemon,  who  lived  in  the 
village  of  Echigawa  in  the  province  of  Omi,  there  was  a  very  old  enoki.  (The 


GAKI  191 

Moths,  flies,  beetles,  grubs,  worms,  and  other 
unpleasant  creatures  seem  thus  to  be  indicated. 
But  some  kinds  of  gaki  cannot  be  identified  with 
insects,  —  for  example,  the  species  called  Jiki-tio- 
gaki,  or  "  Doctrine-eaters."  These  can  exist  only 
by  hearing  the  preaching  of  the  Law  of  the  Bud 
dha  in  some  temple.  While  they  hear  such 
preaching,  their  torment  is  assuaged ;  but  at  all 


enoki,  or  "  Celtis  chinensis,"  is  commonly  thought  to  be  a  goblin-tree.)  From 
ancient  times  the  ancestors  of  the  family  had  been  careful  never  to  cut  a  branch 
of  this  tree  or  to  remove  any  of  its  leaves.  But  Shichizaemon,  who  was  very  self- 
willed,  one  day  announced  that  he  intended  to  have  the  tree  cut  down.  During 
the  following  night  a  monstrous  being  appeared  to  the  mother  of  Shichizaemon,  in 
a  dream,  and  told  her  that  if  the  enoki  were  cut  down,  every  member  of  the  house 
hold  should  die.  But  when  this  warning  was  communicated  to  Shichizaemon,  he 
only  laughed  ;  and  he  then  sent  a  man  to  cut  down  the  tree.  No  sooner  had  it 
been  cut  down  than  Shichizaemon  became  violently  insane.  For  several  days  he 
remained  furiously  mad,  crying  out  at  intervals,  "The  tree  !  the  tree  !  the  tree  !  " 
He  said  that  the  tree  put  out  its  branches,  like  hands,  to  tear  him.  In  this  condi 
tion  he  died.  Soon  afterward  his  wife  went  mad,  crying  out  that  the  tree  was 
killing  her  5  and  she  died  screaming  with  fear.  One  after  another,  all  the  people 
in  that  house,  not  excepting  the  servants,  went  mad  and  died.  The  dwelling  long 
remained  unoccupied  thereafter,  no  one  daring  even  to  enter  the  garden.  At  last  it 
was  remembered  that  before  these  things  happened  a  daughter  of  the  Satsuma  family 
had  become  a  Buddhist  nun,  and  that  she  was  still  living,  under  the  name  of  Jikun, 
in  a  temple  at  Yamashiro.  This  nun  was  sent  for  ;  and  by  request  of  the  villagers 
she  took  up  her  residence  in  the  house,  where  she  continued  to  live  until  the  time 
of  her  death,  —  daily  reciting  a  special  service  on  behalf  of  the  spirit  that  had  dwelt 
in  the  tree.  From  the  time  that  she  began  to  live  in  the  house  the  tree-spirit 
ceased  to  give  trouble.  This  story  is  related  on  the  authority  of  the  priest  Shungyo, 
who  said  that  he  had  heard  it  from  the  lips  of  the  nun  herself. 


192  GAKI 

other  times  they  suffer  agonies  unspeakable.  To 
this  condition  are  liable  after  death  all  Buddhist 
priests  or  nuns  who  proclaim  the  law  for  the 
mere  purpose  of  making  money.  .  .  .  Also 
there  are  gaki  who  appear  sometimes  in  beauti 
ful  human  shapes.  Such  are  the  Toku-sbiki-gaki, 
spirits  of  lewdness, —  corresponding  in  some  sort 
to  the  incubi  and  succubi  of  our  own  Middle  Ages. 
They  can  change  their  sex  at  will,  and  can  make 
their  bodies  as  large  or  as  small  as  they  please. 
It  is  impossible  to  exclude  them  from  any  dwell 
ing,  except  by  the  use  of  holy  charms  and  spells, 
since  they  are  able  to  pass  through  an  orifice 
even  smaller  than  the  eye  of  a  needle.  To  se 
duce  young  men,  they  assume  beautiful  feminine 
shapes,  —  often  appearing  at  wine  parties  as  wait 
resses  or  dancing  girls.  To  seduce  women  they 
take  the  form  of  handsome  lads.  This  state  of 
Toku-sbiki-gaki  is  a  consequence  of  lust  in  some 
previous  human  existence ;  but  the  supernatural 
powers  belonging  to  their  condition  are  results 
of  meritorious  Karma  which  the  evil  Karma  could 
not  wholly  counterbalance. 

Even    concerning    the    Toku-sbiki-gaki,    however, 
it  is   plainly   stated   that   they  may  take   the   form 


GAKI  193 

of  insects.  Though  wont  to  appear  in  human 
shape,  they  can  assume  the  shape  of  any  animal 
or  other  creature,  and  "fly  freely  in  all  directions 
of  space,"  —  or  keep  their  bodies  "  so  small  that 
mankind  cannot  see  them.  .  .  ."  All  insects  are 
not  necessarily  gaki ;  but  most  gaki  can  assume 
the  form  of  insects  when  it  serves  their  purpose. 

Ill 

GROTESQUE  as  these  beliefs  now  seem  to  us,  it 
was  not  unnatural  that  ancient  Eastern  fancy 
should  associate  insects  with  ghosts  and  devils. 
In  our  visible  world  there  are  no  other  creatures 
so  wonderful  and  so  mysterious  ;  and  the  true 
history  of  certain  insects  actually  realizes  the 
dreams  of  mythology.  To  the  minds  of  primi 
tive  men,  the  mere  facts  of  insect-metamorphosis 
must  have  seemed  uncanny ;  and  what  but  gob- 
linry  or  magic  could  account  for  the  monstrous 
existence  of  beings  so  similar  to  dead  leaves,  or 
to  flowers,  or  to  joints  of  grass,  that  the  keenest 
human  sight  could  detect  their  presence  only 
when  they  began  to  walk  or  to  fly?  Even  for 
the  entomologist  of  to-day,  insects  remain  the 
o 


194  GAKI 

most  incomprehensible  of  creatures.  We  have 
learned  from  him  that  they  must  be  acknowledged 
"  the  most  successful  of  organized  beings  "  in  the 
battle  for  existence;  —  that  the  delicacy  and  the 
complexity  of  their  structures  surpass  anything  ever 
imagined  of  marvellous  before  the  age  of  the 
microscope  ;  —  that  their  senses  so  far  exceed  our 
own  in  refinement  as  to  prove  us  deaf  and  blind 
by  comparison.  Nevertheless  the  insect  world 
remains  a  world  of  hopeless  enigmas.  Who  can 
explain  for  us  the  mystery  of  the  eyes  of  a  myriad 
facets,  or  the  secret  of  the  ocular  brains  connected 
with  them  ?  Do  those  astounding  eyes  perceive 
the  ultimate  structure  of  matter  ?  does  their  vision 
pierce  opacity,  after  the  manner  of  the  Rontgen 
rays  ?  (Or  how  interpret  the  deadly  aim  of  that 
ichneumon-fly  which  plunges  its  ovipositor  through 
solid  wood  to  reach  the  grub  embedded  in  the 
grain  ?)  What,  again,  of  those  marvellous  ears 
in  breasts  and  thighs  and  knees  and  feet,  —  ears 
that  hear  sounds  beyond  the  limit  of  human  audi 
tion  ?  and  what  of  the  musical  structures  evolved 
to  produce  such  fairy  melody  ?  What  of  the 
ghostly  feet  that  walk  upon  flowing  water  ?  What 
of  the  chemistry  that  kindles  the  firefly's  lamp, — 


GAKI  195 

making  the  cold  and  beautiful  light  that  all  our 
electric  science  cannot  imitate?  And  those  newly 
discovered,  incomparably  delicate  organs  for  which 
we  have  yet  no  name,  because  our  wisest  cannot 
decide  the  nature  of  them  —  do  they  really,  as 
some  would  suggest,  keep  the  insect-mind  in 
formed  of  things  unknown  to  human  sense,  —  visi 
bilities  of  magnetism,  odours  of  light,  tastes  ot 
sound  ?  .  .  .  Even  the  little  that  we  have  been 
able  to  learn  about  insects  fills  us  with  the  wonder 
that  is  akin  to  fear.  The  lips  that  are  hands, 
and  the  horns  that  are  eyes,  and  the  tongues  that 
are  drills ;  the  multiple  devilish  mouths  that 
move  in  four  ways  at  once ;  the  living  scissors 
and  saws  and  boring-pumps  and  brace-bits ;  the 
exquisite  elfish  weapons  which  no  human  skill 
can  copy,  even  in  the  finest  watch-spring  steel  — 
what  superstition  of  old  ever  dreamed  of  sights 
like  these?  Indeed,  all  that  nightmare  ever  con 
ceived  of  faceless  horror,  and  all  that  ecstasy 
ever  imagined  of  phantasmal  pulchritude,  can 
appear  but  vapid  and  void  by  comparison  with 
the  stupefying  facts  of  entomology.  But  there 
is  something  spectral,  something  alarming,  in  the 
very  beauty  of  insects.  .  .  . 


196  GAKI 

IV 

WHETHER  gaki  do  or  do  not  exist,  there  is  at  least 
some  shadowing  of  truth  in  the  Eastern  belief  that 
the  dead  become  insects.  Undoubtedly  our  human 
dust  must  help,  over  and  over  again  for  millions 
of  ages,  to  build  up  numberless  weird  shapes  of 
life.  But  as  to  that  question  of  my  revery  under 
the  pine  trees,  —  whether  present  acts  and  thoughts 
can  have  anything  to  do  with  the  future  distribu 
tion  and  requickening  of  that  dust,  —  whether  hu 
man  conduct  can  of  itself  predetermine  the  shapes 
into  which  human  atoms  will  be  recast,  —  no  reply 
is  possible.  I  doubt — but  I  do  not  know. 
Neither  does  anybody  else. 

Supposing,  however,  that  the  order  of  the  uni 
verse  were  really  as  Buddhists  believe,  and  that  I 
knew  myself  foredoomed,  by  reason  of  stupidities 
in  this  existence,  to  live  hereafter  the  life  of  an 
insect,  I  am  not  sure  that  the  prospect  would 
frighten  me.  There  are  insects  of  which  it  is  diffi 
cult  to  think  with  equanimity ;  but  the  state  of  an 
independent,  highly  organized,  respectable  insect 
could  not  be  so  very  bad.  I  should  even  look 
forward,  with  some  pleasurable  curiosity,  to  any 


GAKI  197 

chance  of  viewing  the  world  through  the  marvellous 
compound  eyes  of  a  beetle,  an  ephemera,  or  a 
dragon-fly.  As  an  ephemera,  indeed,  I  might  enjoy 
the  possession  of  three  different  kinds  of  eyes,  and 
the  power  to  see  colours  now  totally  unimaginable. 
Estimated  in  degrees  of  human  time,  my  life  would 
be  short,  —  a  single  summer  day  would  include  the 
best  part  of  it  ;  but  to  ephemeral  consciousness  a 
few  minutes  would  appear  a  season  ;  and  my  one 
day  of  winged  existence  —  barring  possible  mishaps 
—  would  be  one  unwearied  joy  of  dancing  in  golden 
air.  And  I  could  feel  in  my  winged  state  neither 
hunger  nor  thirst,  —  having  no  real  mouth  or 
stomach  :  I  should  be,  in  very  truth,  a  Wind-eater. 
.  .  .  Nor  should  I  fear  to  enter  upon  the  much 
less  ethereal  condition  of  a  dragon-fly.  I  should 
then  have  to  bear  carnivorous  hunger,  and  to  hunt 
a  great  deal  ;  but  even  dragon-flies,  after  the  fierce 
joy  of  the  chase,  can  indulge  themselves  in  solitary 
meditation.  Besides,  what  wings  would  then  be 
mine  !  —  and  what  eyes  !  .  .  .  I  could  pleasurably 
anticipate  even  the  certainty  of  becoming  an 
and  so  being  able  to  run  and  to  slide 


1  A  water-insect,  much  resembling  what  we  call  a  "  skater."  In  some  parts 
of  the  country  it  is  said  that  the  boy  who  wants  to  become  a  good  swimmer  must 
eat  the  legs  of  an  Amemb'b. 


198 


GAKI 


upon  water  —  though  children  might  catch  me,  and 
bite  off  my  long  fine  legs.  But  I  think  that  I 
should  better  enjoy  the  existence  of  a  semi,  —  a 
large  and  lazy  cicada,  basking  on  wind-rocked  trees, 
sipping  only  dew,  and  singing  from  dawn  till  dusk. 


Of  course 
be  perils  to 
danger  from 
crows  and 
danger  from 
prey  —  dan- 
boos  tipped 
by  naughty 
But  in  every 
life  there  must 
in  spite  of 
imagine  that 
tered  little 


there  would 
encounter,  — 
hawks  and 
sparrows, — 
insects  of 
gerfrombam- 
with  birdlime 
little  boys, 
condition  of 
be  risks ;  and 
the  risks,  I 
Anacreon  ut- 
more  than 


the  truth,  in  his  praise  of  the  cicada  :  "  O  tbou 
earth-born,  —  song-loving, — free  from  pain,  —  having 
flesh  without  blood,  —  thou  art  nearly  equal  to  the 
Gods!".  .  .  In  fact  I  have  not  been  able  to 
convince  myself  that  it  is  really  an  inestimable 
privilege  to  be  reborn  a  human  being.  And 
if  the  thinking  of  this  thought,  and  the  act  of 


GAKI  199 

writing  it  down,  must  inevitably  affect  my  next 
rebirth,  then  let  me  hope  that  the  state  to  which 
I  am  destined  will  not  be  worse  than  that  of  a 
cicada  or  of  a  dragon-fly ;  —  climbing  the  cryp- 
tomerias  to  clash  my  tiny  cymbals  in  the  sun,  —  or 
haunting,  with  soundless  flicker  of  amethyst  and 
gold,  some  holy  silence  of  lotos-pools. 


A   Matter   of  Custom 


A   Matter  of  Custom 

THERE  is  a  nice  old  priest  of  the  Zen  sect, 
—  past-master  in  the  craft  of  arranging 
flowers,  and  in  other  arts  of  the  ancient 
time,  —  who  comes  occasionally  to  see  me.  He  is 
loved  by  his  congregation,  though  he  preaches 
against  many  old-fashioned  beliefs,  and  discour 
ages  all  faith  in  omens  and  dreams,  and  tells  peo 
ple  to  believe  only  in  the  Law  of  the  Buddha. 
Priests  of  the  Zen  persuasion  are  seldom  thus 
sceptical.  But  the  scepticism  of  my  friend  is  not 
absolute ;  for  the  last  time  that  we  met  we  talked 
of  the  dead,  and  he  told  me  something  creepy. 

"  Stories  of  spirits  or  ghosts,"  he  said,  "  I  always 
doubt.  Sometimes  a  danka l  comes  to  tell  me 
about  having  seen  a  ghost,  or  having  dreamed  a 
strange  dream ;  but  whenever  I  question  such  a 

1  Danka  or  dank'e  signifies  the  parishioner  of  a  Buddhist  temple.  Those  who 
regularly  contribute  to  the  support  of  a  Shinto  temple  are  called  Ujiko. 

203 


204  A   MATTER   OF    CUSTOM 

person    carefully,   I    find    that    the    matter    can    be 
explained  in  a  natural  way. 

"  Only  once  in  my  life  I  had  a  queer  experience 
which  I  could  not  easily  explain.  I  was  then  in 
Kyushu,  —  a  young  novice;  and  I  was  performing 
my  gyo,  —  the  pilgrimage  that  every  novice  has  to 
make.  One  evening,  while  travelling  through  a 
mountain-district,  I  reached  a  little  village  where 
there  was  a  temple  of  the  Zen  sect.  I  went  there 
to  ask  for  lodging,  according  to  our  rules ;  but  I 
found  that  the  priest  had  gone  to  attend  a  funeral  at 
a  village  several  miles  away,  leaving  an  old  nun  in 
charge  of  the  temple.  The  nun  said  that  she  could 
not  receive  me  during  the  absence  of  the  priest,  and 
that  he  would  not  come  back  for  seven  days.  .  .  . 
In  that  part  of  the  country,  a  priest  was  required  by 
custom  to  recite  the  sutras  and  to  perform  a  Buddh 
ist  service,  every  day  for  seven  days,  in  the  house 
of  a  dead  parishioner.  ...  I  said  that  I  did  not 
want  any  food,  but  only  a  place  to  sleep  :  moreover 
I  pleaded  that  I  was  very  tired,  and  at  last  the 
old  nun  took  pity  on  me.  She  spread  some  quilts 
for  me  in  the  temple,  near  the  altar;  and  I  fell 
asleep  almost  as  soon  as  I  lay  down.  In  the  mid 
dle  of  the  night  —  a  very  cold  night !  —  I  was 


A    MATTER   OF    CUSTOM  205 

awakened  by  the  tapping  of  a  mokugyo1  and  the 
voice  of  somebody  chanting  the  Nembutsu?  close 
to  where  I  was  lying.  I  opened  my  eyes ;  but  the 
temple  was  utterly  dark,  —  so  dark  that  if  a  man 
had  seized  me  by  the  nose  I  could  not  have  seen 
him  \hana  wo  tsumarete  mo  wakaranai\  ;  and  I 
wondered  that  anybody  should  be  tapping  the 
mokugyo  and  chanting  in  such  darkness.  But, 
though  the  sounds  seemed  at  first  to  be  quite  near 
me,  they  were  somewhat  faint ;  and  I  tried  to  per 
suade  myself  that  I  must  have  been  mistaken, — 
that  the  priest  had  come  back  and  was  perform 
ing  a  service  in  some  other  part  of  the  temple.  In 
spite  of  the  tapping  and  chanting  I  fell  asleep  again, 
and  slept  until  morning.  Then,  as  soon  as  I  had 
washed  and  dressed,  I  went  to  look  for  the  old  nun, 
and  found  her.  After  thanking  her  for  her  kind 
ness,  I  ventured  to  remark,  f  So  the  priest  came 
back  last  night  ? '  c  He  did  not/  she  answered 
very  crossly  — c  I  told  you  that  he  would  not  come 
back  for  seven  days  more/  'Please  pardon  me/ 

1  The  mokugyo  is  a  very  curious  musical  instrument  of  wood,  in  the  form  of  a 
fish's  head,  and  is  usually  lacquered  in  red  and  gold.      It  is  tapped  with  a  stick  dur 
ing  certain  Buddhist  chants  or  recitations,  producing  a  dull  hollow  sound. 

2  The  invocation  to  Amitabha,  Namu  Ami  da  Butsu   ( ' '  Hail  to  the  Buddha 
Amitabha  !  "),  commonly  repeated  on  behalf  of  the  dead,  is  thus  popularly  named. 


206 


A    MATTER   OF    CUSTOM 


I  said ;  c  last  night  I  heard  somebody  chanting  the 
Nembutsu,  and  beating  the  mokugyo>  so  I  thought 
that  the  priest  had  come  back/  c  Oh,  that  was  not 
the  priest!'  she  exclaimed;  cthat  was  the  danka? 
'  Who  ? '  I  asked ;  for  I  could  not  understand  her. 
£  Why/  she  replied,  c  the  dead  man,  of  course ! 1 
That  always  happens  when  a  parishioner  dies ;  the 


hotoke  comes 
mokugyo  and 
Nembutsu — ' 
if  she  had  been 
tomed  to  the 
did  not  seem 
while  men- 


to  sound  the 
to  repeat  the 
She  spoke  as 
so  long  accus- 
thing  that  it 
to  her  worth 
tioning." 


1  The  original  expression  was  at  least  equally  emphatic  :  "  Aa,  are  desuka  f  — 
are  <wa  botoke  ga  kita  no  desu  yo  !  "  The  word  "  hotoke  "  means  either  a  Buddha 
or,  as  in  this  case,  the  spirit  of  a  dead  person. 


Revery 


Revery 

IT  has  been  said  that  men  fear  death  much  as 
the  child  cries  at  entering  the  world,  being 
unable  to  know  what  loving  hands  are  wait 
ing  to  receive  it.  Certainly  this  comparison  will 
not  bear  scientific  examination.  But  as  a  happy 
fancy  it  is  beautiful,  even  for  those  to  whom  it 
can  make  no  religious  appeal  whatever,  —  those 
who  must  believe  that  the  individual  mind  dis 
solves  with  the  body,  and  that  an  eternal  contin 
uance  of  personality  could  only  prove  an  eternal 
misfortune.  It  is  beautiful,  I  think,  because  it 
suggests,  in  so  intimate  a  way,  the  hope  that  to 
larger  knowledge  the  Absolute  will  reveal  itself  as 
mother-love  made  infinite.  The  imagining  is 
Oriental  rather  than  Occidental ;  yet  it  accords 
with  a  sentiment  vaguely  defined  in  most  of  our 
Western  creeds.  Through  ancient  grim  concep 
tions  of  the  Absolute  as  Father,  there  has  gradu 
ally  been  infused  some  later  and  brighter  dream 
p  209 


210  RE  VERY 

of  infinite  tenderness  —  some  all -transfiguring  hope 
created  by  the  memory  of  Woman  as  Mother ;  and 
the  more  that  races  evolve  toward  higher  things, 
the  more  Feminine  becomes  their  idea  of  a  God. 
Conversely,  this  suggestion  must  remind  even 
the  least  believing  that  we  know  of  nothing  else, 
in  all  the  range  of  human  experience,  so  sacred  as 
mother-love,  —  nothing  so  well  deserving  the  name 
of  divine.  Mother-love  alone  could  have  enabled 
the  delicate  life  of  thought  to  unfold  and  to  en 
dure  upon  the  rind  of  this  wretched  little  planet : 
only  through  that  supreme  unselfishness  could 
the  nobler  emotions  ever  have  found  strength  to 
blossom  in  the  brain  of  man ;  —  only  by  help  of 
mother-love  could  the  higher  forms  of  trust  in 
the  Unseen  ever  have  been  called  into  existence. 

But  musings  of  this  kind  naturally  lead  us  to 
ask  ourselves  emotional  questions  about  the  mys 
teries  of  Whither  and  Whence.  Must  the 
evolutionist  think  of  mother-love  as  a  merely 
necessary  result  of  material  affinities,  —  the  attrac 
tion  of  the  atom  for  the  atom  ?  Or  can  he  venture 
to  assert,  with  ancient  thinkers  of  the  East,  that 
all  atomic  tendencies  are  shapen  by  one  eternal 


REVERY  211 

moral  law,  and  that  some  are  in  themselves  divine, 
being  manifestations  of  the  Four  Infinite  Feel 
ings  ?  .  .  .  What  wisdom  can  decide  for  us  ? 
And  of  what  avail  to  know  our  highest  emotions 
divine,  —  since  the  race  itself  is  doomed  to  perish  ? 
When  mother-love  shall  have  wrought  its  utter 
most  for  humanity,  will  not  even  that  uttermost 
have  been  in  vain  ? 

At  first  thought,  indeed,  the  inevitable  dissolu 
tion  must  appear  the  blackest  of  imaginable  trage 
dies,  —  tragedy  made  infinite  !  Eventually  our 
planet  must  die :  its  azure  ghost  of  air  will  shrink 
and  pass,  its  seas  dry  up,  its  very  soil  perish  utterly, 
leaving  only  a  universal  waste  of  sand  and  stone  — 
the  withered  corpse  of  a  world.  Still  for  a  time 
this  mummy  will  turn  about  the  sun,  but  only  as 
the  dead  moon  wheels  now  across  our  nights,  —  one 
face  forever  in  scorching  blaze,  the  other  in  icy  dark 
ness.  So  will  it  circle,  blank  and  bald  as  a  skull ; 
and  like  a  skull  will  it  bleach  and  crack  and  crumble, 
ever  drawing  nearer  and  yet  more  near  to  the  face 
of  its  flaming  parent,  to  vanish  suddenly  at  last  in 
the  cyclonic  lightning  of  his  breath.  One  by  one 
the  remaining  planets  must  follow.  Then  will  the 


212  REVERY 

mighty  star  himself  begin  to  fail  —  to  flicker  with 
ghastly  changing  colours  —  to  crimson  toward  his 
death.  And  finally  the  monstrous  fissured  cinder 
of  him,  hurled  into  some  colossal  sun-pyre,  will 
be  dissipated  into  vapour  more  tenuous  than  the 
dream  of  the  dream  of  a  ghost.  .  .  . 

What,  then,  will  have  availed  the  labour  of  the  life 
that  was,  —  the  life  effaced  without  one  sign  to  mark 
the  place  of  its  disparition  in  the  illimitable  abyss  ? 
What,  then,  the  worth  of  mother-love,  the  whole 
dead  world  of  human  tenderness,  with  its  sacrifices, 
hopes,  memories,  —  its  divine  delights  and  diviner 
pains,  —  its  smiles  and  tears  and  sacred  caresses,  — 
its  countless  passionate  prayers  to  countless  vanished 
gods  ? 

Such  doubts  and  fears  do  not  trouble  the  thinker 
of  the  East.  Us  they  disturb  chiefly  because  of  old 
wrong  habits  of  thought,  and  the  consequent  blind 
fear  of  knowing  that  what  we  have  so  long  called 
Soul  belongs,  not  to  Essence,  but  to  Form.  .  .  . 
Forms  appear  and  vanish  in  perpetual  succession ; 
but  the  Essence  alone  is  Real.  Nothing  real  can 
be  lost,  even  in  the  dissipation  of  a  million  uni 
verses.  Utter  destruction,  everlasting  death,  —  all 


RE  VERY  213 

such  terms  of  fear  have  no  correspondence  to  any 
truth  but  the  eternal  law  of  change.  Even  forms 
can  perish  only  as  waves  pass  and  break :  they  melt 
but  to  swell  anew,  —  nothing  can  be  lost.  .  .  . 

In  the  nebulous  haze  of  our  dissolution  will  sur 
vive  the  essence  of  all  that  has  ever  been  in  human 
life,  - —  the  units  of  every  existence  that  was  or  is, 
with  all  their  affinities,  all  their  tendencies,  all  their 
inheritance  of  forces  making  for  good  or  evil,  all 
the  powers  amassed  through  myriad  generations,  all 
energies  that  ever  shaped  the  strength  of  races ;  — 
and  times  innumerable  will  these  again  be  orbed  into 
life  and  thought.  Transmutations  there  may  be ; 
changes  also  made  by  augmentation  or  diminution 
of  affinities,  by  subtraction  or  addition  of  tendencies  ; 
for  the  dust  of  us  will  then  have  been  mingled  with 
the  dust  of  other  countless  worlds  and  of  their  peo 
ples.  But  nothing  essential  can  be  lost.  We  shall 
inevitably  bequeath  our  part  to  the  making  of  the 
future  cosmos  —  to  the  substance  out  of  which  an 
other  intelligence  will  slowly  be  evolved.  Even  as 
we  must  have  inherited  something  of  our  psychic 
being  out  of  numberless  worlds  dissolved,  so  will 
4  future  humanities  inherit,  not  from  us  alone,  but 
from  millions  of  planets  still  existing. 


2I4 


REVERY 


For  the  vanishing  of  our  world  can  represent,  in 
the  disparition  of  a  universe,  but  one  infinitesimal 
detail  of  the  quenching  of  thought :  the  peopled 
spheres  that  must  share  our  doom  will  exceed  for 
multitude  the  visible  lights  of  heaven. 

Yet  those  countless  solar  fires,  with  their  view 
less  millions  of  living  planets,  must  somehow  re 


appear:  again 
Cosmos,  self- 
consumed, 
its  sidereal 
the  deeps  of 
And  the  love 
forever  with 
rise  again, 
infinitudes  of 
the  everlast- 
The  light  of 
smile  will  sur- 
—  the  thrill 


the  wondrous 
born  as  self- 
must  resume 
whirl  over 
the  eternities, 
that  strives 
death  shall 
through  fresh 
pain,  to  renew 
ing  battle, 
the  mother's 
vive  our  sun ; 
of  her  kiss 


will  last  beyond  the  thrilling  of  stars ;  —  the  sweet 
ness  of  her  lullaby  will  endure  in  the  cradle-songs 
of  worlds  yet  unevolved ;  —  the  tenderness  of  her 
faith  will  quicken  the  fervour  of  prayers  to  be  made 
to  the  hosts  of  another  heaven,  —  to  the  gods  of 


REVERY  215 

a  time  beyond  Time.  And  the  nectar  of  her  breasts 
can  never  fail :  that  snowy  stream  will  still  flow  on, 
to  nourish  the  life  of  some  humanity  more  perfect 
than  our  own,  when  the  Milky  Way  that  spans 
our  night  shall  have  vanished  forever  out  of  Space. 


Pathological 


Pathological 

VERY  much  do  I  love  cats ;  and  I  suppose 
that  I  could  write  a  large  book  about  the 
different  cats  which  I  have  kept,  in  various 
climes  and  times,  on  both  sides  of  the  world.  But 
this  is  not  a  Book  of  Cats ;  and  I  am  writing  about 
Tama  for  merely  psychological  reasons.  She  has 
been  uttering,  in  her  sleep  beside  my  chair,  a  pecul 
iar  cry  that  touched  me  in  a  particular  way.  It  is 
the  cry  that  a  cat  makes  only  for  her  kittens,  —  a 
soft  trilling  coo,  —  a  pure  caress  of  tone.  And  I 
perceive  that  her  attitude,  as  she  lies  there  on  her 
side,  is  the  attitude  of  a  cat  holding  something,  — 
something  freshly  caught :  the  forepaws  are  stretched 
out  as  to  grasp,  and  the  pearly  talons  are  playing. 

We  call  her  Tama  ("Jewel")  —  not  because  of 
her  beauty,  though  she  is  beautiful,  but  because 
Tama  is  a  female  name  accorded  by  custom  to  pet 
cats.  She  was  a  very  small  tortoise-shell  kitten 

219 


220  PATHOLOGICAL 

when  she  was  first  brought  to  me  as  a  gift  worth 
accepting,  —  a  cat-of-three-colours  (mike-neko)  being 
somewhat  uncommon  in  Japan.  In  certain  parts 
of  the  country  such  a  cat  is  believed  to  be  a  luck- 
bringer,  and  gifted  with  power  to  frighten  away 
goblins  as  well  as  rats.  Tama  is  now  two  years 
old.  I  think  that  she  has  foreign  blood  in  her 
veins :  she  is  more  graceful  and  more  slender  than 
the  ordinary  Japanese  cat ;  and  she  has  a  remarkably 
long  tail,  which,  from  a  Japanese  point  of  view, 
is  her  only  defect.  Perhaps  one  of  her  ancestors 
came  to  Japan  in  some  Dutch  or  Spanish  ship 
during  the  time  of  lyeyasu.  But,  from  whatever 
ancestors  descended,  Tama  is  quite  a  Japanese  cat 
in  her  habits  ;  —  for  example,  she  eats  rice ! 

The  first  time  that  she  had  kittens,  she  proved 
herself  an  excellent  mother,  —  devoting  all  her 
strength  and  intelligence  to  the  care  of  her  little 
ones,  until,  by  dint  of  nursing  them  and  moiling  for 
them,  she  became  piteously  and  ludicrously  thin. 
She  taught  them  how  to  keep  clean,  —  how  to  play 
and  jump  and  wrestle,  —  how  to  hunt.  At  first, 
of  course,  she  gave  them  only  her  long  tail  to  play 
with  ;  but  later  she  found  them  other  toys.  She 


PATHOLOGICAL  221 

brought  them  not  only  rats  and  mice,  but  also 
frogs,  lizards,  a  bat,  and  one  day  a  small  lamprey, 
which  she  must  have  managed  to  catch  in  a  neigh 
bouring  rice-field.  After  dark  I  used  to  leave  open 
for  her  a  small  window  at  the  head  of  the  stairs 
leading  to  my  study,  —  in  order  that  she  might 
go  out  to  hunt  by  way  of  the  kitchen  roof,  And 
one  night  she  brought  in,  through  that  window, 
a  big  straw  sandal  for  her  kittens  to  play  with. 
She  found  it  in  the  field;  and  she  must  have 
carried  it  over  a  wooden  fence  ten  feet  high,  up  the 
house  wall  to  the  roof  of  the  kitchen,  and  thence 
through  the  bars  of  the  little  window  to  the  stair 
way.  There  she  and  her  kittens  played  boisterously 
with  it  till  morning  ;  and  they  dirtied  the  stairway, 
for  that  sandal  was  muddy.  Never  was  cat  more 
fortunate  in  her  first  maternal  experience  than 
Tama. 

But  the  next  time  she  was  not  fortunate.  She 
had  got  into  the  habit  of  visiting  friends  in  another 
street,  at  a  perilous  distance ;  and  one  evening, 
while  on  her  way  thither,  she  was  hurt  by  some 
brutal  person.  She  came  back  to  us  stupid  and 
sick ;  and  her  kittens  were  born  dead.  I  thought 
that  she  would  die  also;  but  she  recovered  much 


222  PATHOLOGICAL 

more  quickly  than  anybody  could  have  imagined 
possible,  —  though  she  still  remains,  for  obvious 
reasons,  troubled  in  spirit  by  the  loss  of  the  kittens. 

The  memory  of  animals,  in  regard  to  certain 
forms  of  relative  experience,  is  strangely  weak  and 
dim.  But  the  organic  memory  of  the  animal,  — 
the  memory  of  experience  accumulated  through 
countless  billions  of  lives,  —  is  superhumanly  vivid, 
and  very  seldom  at  fault.  .  .  .  Think  of  the 
astonishing  skill  with  which  a  cat  can  restore  the 
respiration  of  her  drowned  kitten !  Think  of  her 
untaught  ability  to  face  a  dangerous  enemy  seen  for 
the  first  time,  —  a  venomous  serpent,  for  example ! 
Think  of  her  wide  acquaintance  with  small  creatures 
and  their  ways,  —  her  medical  knowledge  of  herbs, 
—  her  capacities  of  strategy,  whether  for  hunting  or 
fighting !  What  she  knows  is  really  considerable ; 
and  she  knows  it  all  perfectly,  or  almost  perfectly. 
But  it  is  the  knowledge  of  other  existences.  Her 
memory,  as  to  the  pains  of  the  present  life,  is  merci 
fully  brief. 

Tama  could  not  clearly  remember  that  her  kittens 
were  dead.  She  knew  that  she  ought  to  have  had 


PATHOLOGICAL 


223 


kittens;  and  she  looked  everywhere  and  called 
everywhere  for  them,  long  after  they  had  been 
buried  in  the  garden.  She  complained  a  great  deal 
to  her  friends ;  and  she  made  me  open  all  the  cup 
boards  and  closets,  —  over  and  over  again,  —  to 
prove  to  her  that  the  kittens  were  not  in  the  house. 
At  last  she  was  able  to  convince  herself  that  it  was 
useless  to  look  for  them  any  more.  But  she  plays 

with  them  in    dreams,    and 

coos  to  them,  MYJlM/    and     catches 


f  o  r  them 
owy  things, — 
brings  to 
some  dim  win- 
ory,  a  sandal 
straw.  ,  . 


small  shad- 
perhaps  even 
them,through 
dow  of  mem- 
of  ghostly 


In   the   Dead   of   the   Night 

BLACK,  chill,  and  still,  —  so  black,  so  still, 
that  I  touch  myself  to  find  out  whether  I 
have  yet  a  body.  Then  I  grope  about  me 
to  make  sure  that  I  am  not  under  the  earth,  — 
buried  forever  beyond  the  reach  of  light  and  sound. 
.  .  .  A  clock  strikes  three!  I  shall  see  the  sun 
again  ! 

Once  again,  at  least.  Possibly  several  thousand 
times.  But  there  will  come  a  night  never  to  be 
broken  by  any  dawn,  —  a  stillness  never  to  be 
broken  by  any  sound. 

This  is  certain.  As  certain  as  the  fact  that  I 
exist. 

Nothing  else  is  equally  certain.  Reason  deludes  ; 
feeling  deludes  ;  all  the  senses  delude.  But  there 
is  no  delusion  whatever  in  the  certain  knowledge 
of  that  night  to  come. 

Doubt  the  reality  of  substance,  the  reality  of 
ghost,  the  faiths  of  men,  the  gods ;  —  doubt  right 

227 


228       IN   THE   DEAD   OF   THE   NIGHT 

and  wrong,  friendship  and  love,  the  existence  of 
beauty,  the  existence  of  horror  ;  —  there  will  always 
remain  one  thing  impossible  to  doubt,  —  one  in 
finite  blind  black  certainty. 

The  same  darkness  for  all,  —  for  the  eyes  of 
creatures  and  the  eyes  of  heaven  ;  —  the  same  doom 
for  all,  —  insect  and  man,  ant-hill  and  city,  races  and 
worlds,  suns  and  galaxies  :  inevitable  dissolution, 
disparition,  and  oblivion. 

And  vain  all  human  striving  not  to  remember, 
not  to  think  :  the  Veil  that  old  faiths  wove,  to  hide 
the  Void,  has  been  rent  forever  away  ;  —  and  Sheol 
is  naked  before  us,  —  and  destruction  hath  no 
covering. 

So  surely  as  I  believe  that  I  exist,  even  so  surely 
must  I  believe  that  I  shall  cease  to  exist  —  which  is 
horror  !  .  .  .  But  — 

Must  I  believe  that  I  really  exist  ?  .  .  . 


In    the    moment    of    that    self-questioning,    the 
Darkness  stood  about  me  as  a  wall,  and  spake  :  — 

"  I  am  only  the  Shadow  :  I  shall  pass.     But  the 
Reality  will  come,  and  will  not  pass. 


IN   THE   DEAD    OF   THE   NIGHT       229 

"  I  am  only  the  Shadow.  In  me  there  are  lights, 
—  the  glimmering  of  a  hundred  millions  of  suns. 
And  in  me  there  are  voices.  With  the  coming  of 
the  Reality,  there  will  be  no  more  lights,  nor  any 
voice,  nor  any  rising,  nor  any  hope. 

"  But  far  above  you  there  will  still  be  sun  for 
many  a  million  years,  —  and  warmth  and  youth  and 
love  and  joy.  .  .  .  Vast  azure  of  sky  and  sea, — 
fragrance  of  summer  bloom,  —  shrillings  in  grass 
and  grove,  —  flutter  of  shadows  and  flicker  of 
light,  —  laughter  of  waters  and  laughter  of  girls. 
Blackness  and  silence  for  you,  —  and  cold  blind 
creepings." 

I  made  reply  :  — 

"  Of  thoughts  like  these  I  am  now  afraid.  But 
that  is  only  because  I  have  been  startled  out  of 
sleep.  When  all  my  brain  awakens,  I  shall  not 
be  afraid.  ,  For  this  fear  is  brute  fear  only,  —  the 
deep  and  dim  primordial  fear  bequeathed  me  from 
the  million  ages  of  the  life  of  instinct.  .  .  .  Already 
it  is  passing.  I  can  begin  to  think  of  death  as  dream 
less  rest,  —  a  sleep  with  no  sensation  of  either  joy 
or  pain." 

The  Darkness  whispered  :  — 

"  What  is  sensation  ?  " 


230       IN  THE   DEAD   OF  THE   NIGHT 

And  I  could  not  answer,  and  the  Gloom  took 
weight,  and  pressed  upon  me,  and  said :  — 

"  You  do  not  know  what  is  sensation  ?  How, 
then,  can  you  say  whether  there  will  or  will  not 
be  pain  for  the  dust  of  you,  —  the  molecules  of  your 
body,  the  atoms  of  your  soul  ?  .  .  .  Atoms  —  what 
are  they  ? " 

Again  I  could  make  no  answer,  and  the  weight 
of  the  Gloom  waxed  greater — a  weight  of  pyramids 

—  and  the  whisper  hissed  :  — 

"  Their  repulsions  ?  their  attractions  ?  The  awful 
clingings  of  them  and  the  leapings  ?  .  .  .  What  are 
these  ?  .  .  .  Passions  of  lives  burnt  out  ?  —  furies 
of  insatiable  desire  ?  —  frenzies  of  everlasting  hate  ? 

—  madnesses  of  never  ending  torment  ?  .  .  .     You 
do  not  know  ?     But  you  say  that  there  will  be  no 
more  pain !  .  .  ." 

Then  I  cried  out  to  the  mocker :  — 

"  I  am  awake  —  awake  —  fully  awake  !  I  have 
ceased  to  fear ;  —  I  remember  !  .  .  .  All  that  I  am 
is  all  that  I  have  been.  Before  the  beginnings  of 
Time  I  was  ;  —  beyond  the  uttermost  circling  of  the 
Eternities  I  shall  endure.  In  myriad  million  forms 
I  but  seem  to  pass  :  as  form  I  am  only  Wave ;  as 
essence  I  am  Sea.  Sea  without  shore  I  am  ;  —  and 


IN   THE    DEAD    OF    THE   NIGHT       231 


Doubt  and  Fear  and  Pain  are  but  duskings  that 
fleet  on  the  face  of  my  depth.  .  .  .  Asleep,  I 
behold  the  illusions  of  Time ;  but,  waking,  I 
know  myself  timeless  :  one  with  the  Life  that  has 


neither  form 
yet  also  one 
begins  and 
the  grave  and 
graves,  —  the 
the  eater  of 


nor  name, 
with  all  that 
ends,  —  even 
the  maker  of 
corpse  and 
corpses.  .  .  ." 


A  sparrow  twittered  from  the  roof;  another  re 
sponded.  Shapes  of  things  began  to  define  in  a 
soft  gray  glimmering ;  —  and  the  gloom  slowly 
lightened.  Murmurs  of  the  city's  wakening  came 
to  my  ears,  and  grew  and  multiplied.  And  the 
dimness  flushed. 


232       IN   THE   DEAD    OF   THE   NIGHT 

Then  rose  the  beautiful  and  holy  Sun,  the 
mighty  Quickener,  the  mighty  Putrefier, —  sym 
bol  sublime  of  that  infinite  Life  whose  forces  are 
also  mine !  . 


Kusa-Hibari 

Issun  no  mushi  ni  mo  gobu  no  tamashii. 

—  Japanese  Proverb. 


Kusa-Hibari 


HIS  cage  is  exactly  two  Japanese  inches  high 
and  one  inch  and  a  half  wide :  its  tiny 
wooden  door,  turning  upon  a  pivot,  will 
scarcely  admit  the  tip  of  my  little  finger.  But  he  has 
plenty  of  room  in  that  cage,  —  room  to  walk,  and 
jump,  and  fly ;  for  he  is  so  small  that  you  must  look 
very  carefully  through  the  brown-gauze  sides  of  it  in 
order  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  him.  I  have  always  to 
turn  the  cage  round  and  round,  several  times,  in 
a  good  light,  before  I  can  discover  his  whereabouts ; 
and  then  I  usually  find  him  resting  in  one  of  the 
upper  corners,  —  clinging,  upside  down,  to  his  ceil 
ing  of  gauze. 

Imagine  a  cricket  about  the  size  of  an  ordinary 
mosquito, — with  a  pair  of  antennae  much  longer  than 
his  own  body,  and  so  fine  that  you  can  distinguish 
them  only  against  the  light.  Kusa-Hibari,  or 
"  Grass-Lark,"  is  the  Japanese  name  of  him ;  and 
he  is  worth  in  the  market  exactly  twelve  cents : 

235 


236  KUSA-HIBARI 

that  is  to  say,  very  much  more  than  his  weight  in 
gold.  Twelve  cents  for  such  a  gnat-like  thing !  .  .  . 

By  day  he  sleeps  or  meditates,  except  while  occu 
pied  with  the  slice  of  fresh  egg-plant  or  cucumber 
which  must  be  poked  into  his  cage  every  morn 
ing.  .  .  .  To  keep  him  clean  and  well  fed  is  some 
what  troublesome :  could  you  see  him,  you  would 
think  it  absurd  to  take  any  pains  for  the  sake  of  a 
creature  so  ridiculously  small. 

But  always  at  sunset  the  infinitesimal  soul  of  him 
awakens :  then  the  room  begins  to  fill  with  a  deli 
cate  and  ghostly  music  of  indescribable  sweetness, 
—  a  thin,  thin  silvery  rippling  and  trilling  as  of 
tiniest  electric  bells.  As  the  darkness  deepens,  the 
sound  becomes  sweeter,  —  sometimes  swelling  till 
the  whole  house  seems  to  vibrate  with  the  elfish 
resonance,  —  sometimes  thinning  down  into  the  faint 
est  imaginable  thread  of  a  voice.  But  loud  or  low, 
it  keeps  a  penetrating  quality  that  is  weird.  .  .  . 
All  night  the  atomy  thus  sings :  he  ceases  only 
when  the  temple  bell  proclaims  the  hour  of  dawn. 

Now  this  tiny  song  is  a  song  of  love,  —  vague 
love  of  the  unseen  and  unknown.  It  is  quite  im 
possible  that  he  should  ever  have  seen  or  known, 


KUSA-HIBARI  237 

in  this  present  existence  of  his.  Not  even  his 
ancestors,  for  many  generations  back,  could  have 
known  anything  of  the  night-life  of  the  fields,  or 
the  amorous  value  of  song.  They  were  born  of 
eggs  hatched  in  a  jar  of  clay,  in  the  shop  of  some 
insect-merchant;  and  they  dwelt  thereafter  only 
in  cages.  But  he  sings  the  song  of  his  race  as  it 
was  sung  a  myriad  years  ago,  and  as  faultlessly  as 
if  he  understood  the  exact  significance  of  every 
note.  Of  course  he  did  not  learn  the  song.  It  is 
a  song  of  organic  memory,  —  deep,  dim  memory  of 
other  quintillions  of  lives,  when  the  ghost  of  him 
shrilled  at  night  from  the  dewy  grasses  of  the  hills. 
Then  that  song  brought  him  love  —  and  death. 
He  has  forgotten  all  about  death ;  but  he  remem 
bers  the  love.  And  therefore  he  sings  now  —  for 
the  bride  that  will  never  come. 

So  that  his  longing  is  unconsciously  retrospec 
tive  :  he  cries  to  the  dust  of  the  past,  —  he  calls 
to  the  silence  and  the  gods  for  the  return  of 
time.  .  .  .  Human  lovers  do  very  much  the  same 
thing  without  knowing  it.  They  call  their  illu 
sion  an  Ideal ;  and  their  Ideal  is,  after  all,  a  mere 
shadowing  of  race-experience,  a  phantom  of  organic 
memory.  The  living  present  has  very  little  to  do 


238  KUSA-HIBARI 

with  it.  ...  Perhaps  this  atomy  also  has  an  ideal, 
or  at  least  the  rudiment  of  an  ideal ;  but,  in  any 
event,  the  tiny  desire  must  utter  its  plaint  in  vain. 
The  fault  is  not  altogether  mine.  I  had  been 
warned  that  if  the  creature  were  mated,  he  would 
cease  to  sing  and  would  speedily  die.  But,  night 
after  night,  the  plaintive,  sweet,  unanswered  trill 
ing  touched  me  like  a  reproach,  —  became  at  last 
an  obsession,  an  affliction,  a  torment  of  conscience ; 
and  I  tried  to  buy  a  female.  It  was  too  late  in 
the  season ;  there  were  no  more  kusa-bibari  for 
sale,  —  either  males  or  females.  The  insect-mer 
chant  laughed  and  said,  "  He  ought  to  have  died 
about  the  twentieth  day  of  the  ninth  month."  (It 
was  already  the  second  day  of  the  tenth  month.) 
But  the  insect-merchant  did  not  know  that  I  have 
a  good  stove  in  my  study,  and  keep  the  tempera 
ture  at  above  75°  F.  Wherefore  my  grass-lark 
still  sings  at  the  close  of  the  eleventh  month, 
and  I  hope  to  keep  him  alive  until  the  Period 
of  Greatest  Cold.  However,  the  rest  of  his  gen 
eration  are  probably  dead :  neither  for  love  nor 
money  could  I  now  find  him  a  mate.  And  were 
I  to  set  him  free  in  order  that  he  might  make 
the  search  for  himself,  he  could  not  possibly  live 


KUSA-HIBARI  239 

through  a  single  night,  even  if  fortunate  enough 
to  escape  by  day  the  multitude  of  his  natural 
enemies  in  the  garden,  —  ants,  centipedes,  and 
ghastly  earth-spiders. 


Last  evening  —  the  twenty-ninth  of  the  eleventh 
month  —  an  odd  feeling  came  to  me  as  I  sat  at 
my  desk:  a  sense  of  emptiness  in  the  room.  Then 
I  became  aware  that  my  grass-lark  was  silent,  con 
trary  to  his  wont.  I  went  to  the  silent  cage,  and 
found  him  lying  dead  beside  a  dried-up  lump  of 
egg-plant  as  gray  and  hard  as  a  stone.  Evidently 
he  had  not  been  fed  for  three  or  four  days  ;  but 
only  the  night  before  his  death  he  had  been  sing 
ing  wonderfully,  —  so  that  I  foolishly  imagined 
him  to  be  more  than  usually  contented.  My  stu 
dent,  Aki,  who  loves  insects,  used  to  feed  him  ; 
but  Aki  had  gone  into  the  country  for  a  week's 
holiday,  and  the  duty  of  caring  for  the  grass-lark 
had  devolved  upon  Hana,  the  housemaid.  She  is 
not  sympathetic,  Hana  the  housemaid.  She  says 
that  she  did  not  forget  the  mite,  —  but  there  was 


24o  KUSA-HIBARI 

no  more  egg-plant.  And  she  had  never  thought 
of  substituting  a  slice  of  onion  or  of  cucumber ! 
.  .  .  I  spoke  words  of  reproof  to  Hana  the 
housemaid,  and  she  dutifully  expressed  contrition. 
But  the  fairy-music  has  stopped ;  and  the  stillness 
reproaches;  and  the  room  is  cold,  in  spite  of  the 
stove. 

Absurd !  .  .  .  I  have  made  a  good  girl  un 
happy  because  of  an  insect  half  the  size  of  a  barley- 
grain  !  The  quenching  of  that  infinitesimal  life 
troubles  me  more  than  I  could  have  believed  pos 
sible.  .  .  .  Of  course,  the  mere  habit  of  think 
ing  about  a  creature's  wants  —  even  the  wants  of  a 
cricket  —  may  create,  by  insensible  degrees,  an 
imaginative  interest,  an  attachment  of  which  one 
becomes  conscious  only  when  the  relation  is  broken. 
Besides,  I  had  felt  so  much,  in  the  hush  of  the 
night,  the  charm  of  the  delicate  voice,  —  telling  of 
one  minute  existence  dependent  upon  my  will  and 
selfish  pleasure,  as  upon  the  favour  of  a  god, — 
telling  me  also  that  the  atom  of  ghost  in  the  tiny 
cage,  and  the  atom  of  ghost  within  myself,  were 
forever  but  one  and  the  same  in  the  deeps  of  the 
Vast  of  being.  .  .  .  And  then  to  think  of  the 


KUSA-HIBARI 


241 


little  creature  hungering  and  thirsting,  night  after 
night,  and  day  after  day,  while  the  thoughts  of  his 
guardian  deity  were  turned  to  the  weaving  of 
dreams  !  .  .  .  How  bravely,  nevertheless,  he  sang 
on  to  the  very  end,  —  an  atrocious  end,  for  he  had 
eaten  his  own  legs!  .  .  .  May  the  gods  forgive 
us  al^  —  especially  Hana  the  housemaid! 


Yet,  after 
one's  own  legs 
not  the  worst 
pen  to  a  being 
the  gift  of 
are  human 
must  eat  their 
order  to  sing. 


all,  to  devour 
for  hunger  is 
that  can  hap- 
cursed  with 
song.  There 
crickets  who 
own  hearts  in 


The   Eater  of  Dreams 


The   Eater  of  Dreams 

Mtjika-yo  ya! 
Baku  no  yume  ku 
Hima  mo  nashi! 

—  "Alas!  how  short  this  night  of  ours!     The  Baku  will  not 
even  have  time  to  eat  our  dreams!  " 

—  Old  Japanese  Love- song. 

THE    name   of    the    creature   is    Baku,    or 
Shirokinakatsukami ;    and    its     particular 
function   is  the  eating  of  Dreams.     It  is 
variously  represented    and    described.     An    ancient 
book  in  my  possession  states  that  the  male  Baku 
has  the  body  of  a  horse,  the  face  of  a  lion,  the  trunk 
and  tusks  of  an  elephant,  the  forelock  of  a  rhinoc 
eros,  the  tail  of  a  cow,  and  the  feet  of  a  tiger.     The 
female  Baku  is  said  to  differ  greatly  in  shape  from 
the  male ;  but  the  difference  is  not  clearly  set  forth. 

In  the  time  of  the  old  Chinese  learning,  pictures 
of  the  Baku  used  to  be  hung  up  in  Japanese  houses, 

245 


246  THE   EATER   OF   DREAMS 

such  pictures  being  supposed  to  exert  the  same 
beneficent  power  as  the  creature  itself.  My  ancient 
book  contains  this  legend  about  the  custom :  — 

"In  the  Sh~osei-Roku  it  is  declared  that  Kotei,  while 
hunting  on  the  Eastern  coast,  once  met  with  a  Baku 
having  the  body  of  an  animal,  but  speaking  like  a  man. 
Kotei  said  :  '  Since  the  world  is  quiet  and  at  peace,  why 
should  we  still  see  goblins  ?  If  a  Baku  be  needed  to 
extinguish  evil  sprites,  then  it  were  better  to  have  a  picture 
of  the  Baku  suspended  to  the  wall  of  one's  house.  There 
after,  even  though  some  evil  Wonder  should  appear,  it 
could  do  no  harm.'  " 

Then  there  is  given  a  long  list  of  evil  Wonders, 
and  the  signs  of  their  presence  :  — 

"  When  the  Hen  lays  a  soft  egg,  the  demon's  name  is 
TAIFU. 

"  When  snakes  appear  entwined  together,  the  demon  s 
name  is  JINZU. 

"  When  dogs  go  with  their  ears  turned  back,  the 
demon  s  name  is  TAIYO. 

"  When  the  Fox  speaks  with  the  voice  of  a  man,  the 
demon  s  name  is  GWAISHU. 

"  When  blood  appears  on  the  clothes  of  men,  the 
demon  s  name  is  YUKI. 


w  fw 


%8 


THE   EATER   OF   DREAMS  247 

<c  When  the  rice-pot  speaks  with  a  human  voice,  the 
demon  s  name  is  KANJO. 

"  When  the  dream  of  the  night  is  an  evil  dream,  the 
demon  s  name  is  RINGETSU.  .  .  ." 

And  the  old  book  further  observes :  "  When 
ever  any  such  evil  marvel  happens,  let  the  name 
of  the  Baku  be  invoked :  then  the  evil  sprite 
will  immediately  sink  three  feet  under  the  ground." 

But  on  the  subject  of  evil  Wonders  I  do  not 
feel  qualified  to  discourse :  it  belongs  to  the  un 
explored  and  appalling  world  of  Chinese  demonol- 
ogy,  and  it  has  really  very  little  to  do  with  the 
subject  of  the  Baku  in  Japan.  The  Japanese 
Baku  is  commonly  known  only  as  the  Eater  of 
Dreams ;  and  the  most  remarkable  fact  in  relation 
to  the  cult  of  the  creature  is  that  the  Chinese 
character  representing  its  name  used  to  be  put  in 
gold  upon  the  lacquered  wooden  pillows  of  lords 
and  princes.  By  the  virtue  and  power  of  this 
character  on  the  pillow,  the  sleeper  was  thought 
to  be  protected  from  evil  dreams.  It  is  rather', 
difficult  to  find  such  a  pillow  to-day :  even  pic- ' 
tures  of  the  Baku  (or  "  Hakutaku,"  as  it  is  some- 


248  THE   EATER   OF   DREAMS 

times  called)  have  become  very  rare.  But  the  old 
invocation  to  the  Baku  still  survives  in  common 
parlance  :  Baku  kurae  !  Baku  kurae  !  —  "  Devour, 
O  Baku !  devour  my  evil  dream ! "  .  .  .  When 
you  awake  from  a  nightmare,  or  from  any  unlucky 
dream,  you  should  quickly  repeat  that  invocation 
three  times ;  —  then  the  Baku  will  eat  the  dream, 
and  will  change  the  misfortune  or  the  fear  into 
good  fortune  and  gladness. 


* 


It  was  on  a  very  sultry  night,  during  the  Period 
of  Greatest  Heat,  that  I  last  saw  the  Baku.  I 
had  just  awakened  out  of  misery ;  and  the  hour 
was  the  Hour  of  the  Ox;  and  the  Baku  came  in 
through  the  window  to  ask,  "  Have  you  anything 
for  me  to  eat  ? " 

I  gratefully  made  answer: — 

"  Assuredly  !  .  .  .  Listen,  good  B^ku,  to  this 
dream  of  mine  !  — 

"  I  was  standing  in  some  great  white-walled 
room,  where  lamps  were  burning;  but  I  cast  no 


THE   EATER    OF   DREAMS  249 

shadow  on  the  naked  floor  of  that  room,  —  and 
there,  upon  an  iron  bed,  I  saw  my  own  dead  body. 
How  I  had  come  to  die,  and  when  I  had  died,  I 
could  not  remember.  Women  were  sitting  near 
the  bed,  —  six  or  seven,  —  and  I  did  not  know  any 
of  them.  They  were  neither  young  nor  old,  and 
all  were  dressed  in  black :  watchers  I  took  them 
to  be.  They  sat  motionless  and  silent :  there  was 
no  sound  in  the  place ;  and  I  somehow  felt  that 
the  hour  was  late. 

"  In  the  same  moment  I  became  aware  of  some 
thing  nameless  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  room, — 
a  heaviness  that  weighed  upon  the  will,  —  some 
viewless  numbing  power  that  was  slowly  growing. 
Then  the  watchers  began  to  watch  each  other, 
stealthily ;  and  I  knew  that  they  were  afraid. 
Soundlessly  one  rose  up,  and  left  the  room. 
Another  followed;  then  another.  So,  one  by 
one,  and  lightly  as  shadows,  they  all  went  out. 
I  was  left  alone  with  the  corpse  of  myself. 

"  The  lamps  still  burned  clearly  ;  but  the  terror 
in  the  air  was  thickening.  The  watchers  had 
stolen  away  almost  as  soon  as  they  began  to  feel 
it.  But  I  believed  that  there  was  yet  time  to 
escape;  —  I  thought  that  I  could  safely  delay  a 


25o  THE    EATER    OF    DREAMS 

moment  longer.  A  monstrous  curiosity  obliged 
me  to  remain :  I  wanted  to  look  at  my  own  body, 
to  examine  it  closely.  ...  I  approached  it.  I 
observed  it.  And  I  wondered  —  because  it  seemed 
to  me  very  long,  —  unnaturally  long.  .  .  . 

"  Then  I  thought  that  I  saw  one  eyelid  quiver. 
But  the  appearance  of  motion  might  have  been 
caused  by  the  trembling  of  a  lamp-flame.  I  stooped 
to  look  —  slowly,  and  very  cautiously,  because  I 
was  afraid  that  the  eyes  might  open. 

" c  It  is  Myself/  I  thought,  as  I  bent  down, — 
c  and  yet,  it  is  growing  queer ! '  .  .  .  The  face 
appeared  to  be  lengthening.  ...  c  It  is  not  My 
self/  I  thought  again,  as  I  stooped  still  lower, 
— c  and  yet,  it  cannot  be  any  other ! '  And  I 
became  much  more  afraid,  unspeakably  afraid,  that 
the  eyes  would  open.  .  .  . 

"  They  OPENED  !  —  horribly  they  opened  !  —  and 
that  thing  sprang,  —  sprang  from  the  bed  at  me, 
and  fastened  upon  me,  —  moaning,  and  gnawing, 
and  rending !  Oh !  with  what  madness  of  terror 
did  I  strive  against  it !  But  the  eyes  of  it,  and 
the  moans  of  it,  and  the  touch  of  it,  sickened ; 
and  all  my  being  seemed  about  to  burst  asunder 
in  frenzy  of  loathing,  when  —  I  knew  not  how  — 


THE   EATER   OF    DREAMS  251 

I  found  in  my  hand  an  axe.  And  I  struck  with 
the  axe ;  —  I  clove,  I  crushed,  I  brayed  the 
Moaner,  —  until  there  lay  before  me  only  a  shape 
less,  hideous,  reeking  mass,  —  the  abominable  ruin 
of  Myself.  .  .  . 

" Baku  kurae!  Baku  kurae!  Baku  kurae! 

Devour,  O  Baku  !  devour  the  dream  !  " 

"  Nay  !  "  made  answer 

the  Baku.  11  "  I  never  eat 

lucky  dreams.  That  is  a  very 

Self  is  utterly  destroyed ! . . . 

The  best  kind  K^|    of  a   dream! 

My  friend,  /  believe  in  the 

teaching      of  the  Buddha." 

And  the  Baku  went  out  of  the  window.  I 
looked  after  him;  —  and  I  beheld  him  fleeing  over 
the  miles  of  moonlit  roofs,  —  passing,  from  house 
top  to  house-top,  with  amazing  soundless  leaps, — 
like  a  great  cat.  .  .  . 


LETTERS   FROM  JAPAN 

A  Record  of  Modern  Life  in  the  Island  Empire 

By  MRS.   HUGH  FRASER 

Author  of  "Palladia,"  "  The  Brown  Ambassador"  etc. 

With  Two  Hundred  and  Fifty  Illustrations 

In  two  volumes.      Cloth.      8vo.      $7.50,  net 

"  As  the  wife  of  the  British  Minister  to  Japan,  the  author  of  these  letters  had 
exceptional  opportunities  to  observe  the  people  and  their  customs,  and  has  had 
access  to  sources  of  information  which  she  has  been  enabled  to  use  in  a  very 
charming  way.  She  has  written  in  an  easy,  charming  style  of  the  many-sided 
and  complex  character  of  the  people."  —  Washington  Post. 

"  It  is  refreshing  to  come  across  some  one  who  has  been  to  Japan,  and  for 
once  has  seen  something  else  than  a  mere  inanimate  collection  of  bric-a-brac, 
or  a  theme  for  rhapsodical  effusions  on  aesthetics  or  politics,  and  who  has 
looked  at  something  besides  museums,  geishas,  lacquered  ware,  and  screens. 
The  chief  attraction  in  Mrs.  Eraser's  letters  is  that  she  regards  the  Japanese  as 
human  beings,  and  not  as  curiosities,  with  the  result  that  she  makes  them  com 
prehensible  to  her  readers."  —  New  York  Sun. 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

TALES   OF   NEW    JAPAN 

By    MRS.    HUGH    FRASER 

Author  of  "  Letters  from  Japan"  etc. 

Cloth.     i2mo.    $1.50 

"  Idyllic  lore  stories  told  with  the  warmth  and  passion  of  poetic  feeling." 

—  Bookman. 

"  Disclose  not  only  knowledge,  but  insight  and  imagination,  the  romantic 
faculty  as  well  as  a  close  acquaintance  with  the  actual  conditions  of  life  in 
Japan."  —  New  York  Tribune. 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

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THE  MASTERY  OF  THE  PACIFIC 

By   ARCHIBALD  R.  COLQUHOUN 

Gold  Medallist  Royal  Geographical  Society ;  Silver  Medallist  Society  of 
Arts  ;  formerly  Deputy  Commissioner,  Burmah  ;  Administrator  of 
Mashonaland,  South  Africa ;   and  Special  Correspond 
ent  of  the  "  London  Times  "  in  the  Far  East. 
Author  of '" China  in  Transformation"  "  The  'Overland'  to  China"  etc. 

With  special  maps,  and  more  than  100  illustrations 
from  original  sketches  and  photographs 

Cloth.    8vo.    $4.00,  net 


11  He  is  a  keen  observer,  qualified  by  experience  better  than  most  travellers 
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the  subject.     It  is  particularly  valuable  for  the  opportunity  which  it  gives  to 
compare  the  various  methods  employed  by  Western  nations  in  the  Pacific. 
An  entertaining  and  weighty  book."  —  The  Bu/alo  Express. 

"  In  brief,  the  volume  presents  a  vivid  impression  of  the  various  countries 
visited,  their  peoples,  scenery,  social  and  political  life,  and  their  parts  in  the 
great  drama  of  the  future.  The  many  illustrations  are  supplied  from  sketches 
and  photographs  made  by  Mrs.  Colquhoun,  and  add  greatly  to  the  ethnological 
significance  and  interest  of  the  work."  —  The  Public  Ledger,  Philadelphia. 

"A  new  book  on  the  Far  East,  by  Archibald  R.  Colquhoun,  is  always 
acceptable,  for  he  never  fails  to  be  readable  and  enlightening.  His  wide  ex 
perience  as  a  British  official  in  Burmah  and  in  South  Africa  and  as  Asiatic 
correspondent  of  the  London  Times  has  given  him  a  breadth  of  view  and  a 
wealth  of  first-hand  knowledge  which  were  especially  noticeable  in  his  two 
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matter."  —  Record-Herald,  Chicago. 

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magnitude  might  well  appall  a  less  well-equipped  writer,  it  bears  on  every  page 
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"  As  a  timely  treatise  on  the  politics  of  the  Far  East  and  of  the  Far  West— 
the  terms  will  become  synonymous  when  the  Trans-Isthmian  Canal  is  made  — 
this  work  is  invaluable.  As  a  collection  of  studies  of  the  wondrously  complex 
life  of  the  Pacific  it  is  no  less  admirable."  —  The  Morning  Post,  London. 


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